A Death in Norfolk

Chapter Eight

I had never in the year or so I'd known James Denis heard him speak with concern about another human being. He did not, even now-his voice held the stiffness of a man confessing something he did not want to, nor thought he'd ever have to, confess.

I did not reply. If Denis wished to tell me more, he would. If he did not, he would not, even under torture.

After another silent moment, Denis turned around, his face as impassive as ever. "I had an unusual childhood, Captain. I will not give you the details, but suffice it to say, urchins who pick pockets on the streets have more usual childhoods than I. I met Cooper when I was ten years old. He had just retired from exhibition fighting-not of his own will. The man who'd trained and kept him commanded him to lose a fight to a younger man the trainer was trying to bring out as his next sensation. Cooper refused, and so he was turned out without a shilling.

"I tried to rob Cooper on the street. When picking his pocket did not work, I pulled out my knife and tried to fight him." He shook his head. "Me, a stripling of ten, and Cooper as large and tough as he is now, but twenty years younger. He bested me easily, but instead of turning me over to the Watch, he took me home. He told me that he'd teach me to fight if I stole for him so we could eat. I tried to tell him to go to the devil, but he landed me on the floor and left me there to think about it.

"I did think about it, long and hard, and decided his scheme might be a good one. If this man taught me to fight, I reasoned, in time, I'd be able to fight him, and get free of him. Meanwhile, if he protected me and kept me away from the magistrates, we might be able to make a good living together. I called to him and told him I agreed, but that I would choose the targets and do nothing I thought too dangerous for me. The only way this would work, I said, was if neither of us got caught. We made a pact then and there, a contract, if you will, about what I would do and what he would do, and that we would protect each other."

Denis let out a breath. "So it began. Cooper taught me how to fight-with fists, with knives, with pistols. He taught me how to take down a larger opponent with a minimum of moves, and how to render them unconscious before they realized what was happening.

"I scoured the city looking for targets, reported to Cooper, and planned our moves. Simple robberies at first, of things that were easy to take and easy to sell. We made a good team, me slipping in while Cooper provided a distraction, Cooper getting in the way of any who might have caught me. But as I grew, so did my ambition. Our targets became more complicated, more lucrative, and I started to hire more men to help us. Cooper remained in thick with the world of pugilists, and he knew who could be trusted, who would be loyal, and who would welcome employment."

He opened his hands. "So you see, Captain, Cooper has been with me every step of the way. He protected me, fought for me, taught me how to fight for myself when no help was coming. It did not take long before I abandoned the idea of besting and killing him and so ending the association. We got on, and nothing could stop us. And now, he is missing, and one of the men he handpicked is dead."

Cooper had always been deferential to Denis, calling him "sir" and doing his slightest bidding. I imagined that Cooper had recognized, even in the ten-year-old Denis, a being of intelligence and great ambition. Cooper must have realized that his impulse to use the little boy had been a stroke of luck so pure he could bathe in it.

Relationships were never simple, I well knew. What was between Denis and Cooper, changing and developing as the two men grew older, would be enmeshed and complex.

"Cooper would never have killed Ferguson without telling me or explaining why," Denis said. "I know this."

I understood what he feared. The killer could have struck Ferguson and then gone after Cooper. Or the other way around. Perhaps we simply hadn't found Cooper's body.

"I will look as thoroughly as I can," I said.

Denis looked straight at me again, as cold and hard as ever. "See that you do. Report to me or send messages through your lackey."

I did not bother arguing that I did not work for him. "If a fine-blooded horse wanders into the stable yard, please tether it for me. I mislaid it, and it belongs to Lady Southwick."

"I will have my men keep an eye out. I will also send my regrets to Lady Southwick that you will not be attend her outing to Binham Priory. I prefer that you keep searching for Cooper."

How the devil he knew about the Binham ramble I did not know, but I had learned long ago not to be surprised at the information Denis had at his fingertips.

"I confess that riding about the heath and marshes will be preferable to another game of bloody croquet," I said.

"Have a care, Captain. I am certain that wedded bliss with the upper classes will land you in many more games of bloody croquet."

I turned back. "Is that why you've never married? An objection to croquet?"

Denis gave me the barest hint of a smile. "You will get no more stories out of me today, Captain. Good afternoon."

He sat down at the desk, pulled the half-finished letter back to the center of the desktop, and lifted his pen. I'd been dismissed.

I went downstairs and told the man talking to Jackson to fetch me a horse. I'd search much better on horseback through back country than from the landau on the roads. If Denis expected me to scour the land, he could provide the means.

I traversed the footpath to the windmill, but Bartholomew was not there. I found nothing more than I had the night before-blood I'd not been able to soak up with the dirt was now dried on floor and walls. Someone from Denis's household had brought at ladder reach the upper floors. I climbed this to a much cleaner room above, wide windows on two sides letting in daylight.

This floor had been part of the keeper's rooms, but every stick of furniture had been removed. A thick layer of dust coated the floor, undisturbed. No one had been up here, including Bartholomew or Denis's men. They must have looked at the dusty floor, and concluded, as I did, that no one had been there and it was not worth the bother to ascend.

I left the windmill, took the horse led out for me, and rode north and west toward Blakeney, crossing a river and cutting over fields.

Farmland rippled around me, the centuries-old practice of draining the marshes rendering the land dry and fertile. Late crops were still growing, this year a little thicker than had been in the past few years, when a cold summer had meant small yield. I saw the blight the bad years had left-farms abandoned, cottages standing empty. Farmers and farm laborers had gone to the cities to find work, to be buried in the dirt and smoke of the factories.

As I rode, I saw farmers bending to labors, and as I neared the sea, fishermen walking back to the villages from their day out, nets over their shoulders, ready for mending. Nowhere did I see the large form of Cooper, nor did I see Lady Southwick's blasted horse.

As I rode into Blakeney, I took a chance, dismounted in front of the public house, and asked inside where I could find Mrs. Quinn, widow of the Parson's Point vicar. I knew fewer men in this taproom than I had in the Parson's Point pub, but still a good many greeted me with quiet acknowledgment.

The publican told me that Mrs. Quinn lived in the high street near the pump, next door to him, in fact. He pointed the way, I thanked him, left the horse with the hostler, and walked to the house.

The cottages in Blakeney, as they were in Parson's Point, were made of, or partly of, flint, which was found in abundance in this part of the country. The walls of the Blakeney cottages were pebbled with the gray stone.

I knocked on the green-painted door of the house, to have the door wrenched open from within by Terrance Quinn.

"What do you want, Lacey?" was his greeting.

I removed my hat and bowed. "I came to pay my respects to your aunt and mother."

"Did you?" Terrance filled the doorframe, preventing me from looking past him. "I do not see you hobbling around to pay your respects to other men's mothers."

"I was fond of your uncle. I heard about his demise and wanted to give my best to his family."

Terrance scowled. "You're a lying bastard, Lacey. You came to pry. Do you think we don't know what you've been getting up to in London since you came back from the war? In thick with magistrates and the Runners. Chasing murderers. You've turned thief taker."

"Not quite."

"I think quite describes it. You scent a whiff of scandal about my family, and here you come to pay your 'respects.'"

I could not say he was wrong. The dress I'd found had intrigued and worried me, and yes, learning of Helena's flight had made me uneasy.

"Perhaps we should not argue about it on the high street," I said.

"Why not? Our neighbors know all our business. Ask them."

Terrance started to close the door. I put my shoulder against it. "Listen to me," I said, my voice low. "Your cousin was my friend, and at one time, you were too. I want to help you find her."

Terrance opened the door, grabbed me, and hauled me inside, his one-handed grip amazingly strong. He slammed the door, and I righted myself before I could unbalance on my bad leg. We made a sorry pair.

"My mother and aunt have gone to Norwich," Terrance said. "The cook and maid are taking their day out, so no one is here to stop me beating the devil out of you."

"You'd find it a tough fight," I said. "I am not as feeble as I appear."

"Neither am I." Terrance's face was red.

I gestured with my walking stick to his empty right sleeve. "How did that happen?"

"How do you think? Fighting the Frenchies at Waterloo. A ball went right through it. The surgeon said I'd have to lose it or die of gangrene, so I let him take it. I should have told him to shoot me in the head."

I tapped my bad knee with the stick. "This was French deserters amusing themselves with a lone prisoner. The only reason I lived was because of the kindness of a Spanish woman and her small children. I, the brave soldier, was reduced to begging for water from a six-year-old boy."

Terrance looked at my injured leg with a little less belligerence. "I suppose we both have harrowing tales. I thought my family would welcome me back with joy, but they've let it be known that I would have brought them more honor if I'd stayed and died. What good is half a man to a poor family?"

"Which is why I make myself useful by prying into other people's affairs."

"And now you've come to pry into ours. To hell with this, Lacey. Helena ran off with a man. She went to Cambridge. That is all."

I debated whether to tell him about the gown, but I decided not to. Terrance was unhappy and volatile, and I was by no means certain the gown had been Helena's.

"Arguing is thirsty work," I said. "Step with me to the pub, and I'll stand you a tankard."

I thought for a moment he might accept, for old time's sake, but Terrance shook his head. "I have things to do before my aunt and mother return. I'll tell them you called."

"Fair enough." I made for the door. "Send for me anytime you wish to jaw, or drink, or argue. A message to the old Lacey house will reach me."

"Do not wait for it," Terrance said.

I gave him another half bow and stepped out of the house. He slammed the door before I could turn and walk away.

I made my way down the southwestern road to the Lacey house. When I reached it, I found that Denis's two men had returned to continue the search for the stolen artwork, but no Cooper.

Bartholomew was there, as well as Matthias, the two brothers helping one of the men break up the debris from the bonfire. Bartholomew had found nothing in the windmill, he said, as I stopped to speak to them.

A sudden shouting from the house startled us all. It was Denis's man, who had gone below stairs to continue demolishing the servants' passages and the kitchen.

Matthias and Bartholomew raced to the house, and I followed as quickly as I could. We found the second man in the kitchen, he having torn half the mantelpiece from the fireplace. I do not now what I expected him to show us-the skeletal remains of Miss Quinn? — but I was fully prepared for horror.

What he held, pulled from the fireplace, was a piece of canvas folded around things that clanked.

As we all hurried in, he spread the canvas open across the massive kitchen worktable, the one piece of furniture still whole.

"There, guv," he said. "What do you think of that?"

I stared down at four silver candlesticks, a wide and deep silver chalice, and a small silver plate, tarnished now, but the metal shimmered here and there in the sunlight from the high windows.

These dishes had never graced the Lacey household. The plate and chalice had been made to hold a host and wine, and I'd stared at the silver candlesticks on the altar of the chapel at Parson's Point all my young life.

Someone had robbed the Parson's Point church and stuffed the booty up the chimney of the Lacey kitchen.