“Oh, nothing. Could you ask Chalmers to set up Sadie for me?”
“Mr. Chalmers is driving the coach to Bath, sir, but his assistant will—”
“Yes, yes, that’s fine.” Then Lenox had a thought. Could he overtake them upon the road to Bath? “When did they leave?” he asked.
“Fifty minutes since.”
It was no good — they would have covered too much of the distance. “Well, I’ll take the horse, anyhow.”
After Nash had left, Lenox realized something; his uncle would have had to stop and fetch both Oates and Wells. His carriage tended to move at a pretty stately pace, too. If Sadie took up a canter, perhaps …
Lenox ran to the breakfast room, tucked a piece of sausage into a piece of toast, gulped it down with a half- cup of coffee, and then went out to the stables. Nash, altogether in less haste, was just arriving.
“Never mind,” said Lenox. “Tell my wife and Lord John that I’m riding after my uncle.”
“Yes, sir.”
By a stroke of good fortune Sadie was already warm and saddled, because Chalmers, that good man, had left word behind that she was to be prepared for Lenox from eight in the morning. He stroked her mane and offered her an apple, which she took from his palm with stupid and good-natured excitement, and then stepped up to the saddle.
“There is only one road to Bath from here, correct?” said Lenox.
The boy who had been left in charge of the stables — he couldn’t have been above thirteen — nodded and pointed. “Yes, sir. And nice catch, sir, in the game.”
Lenox laughed. “Out for a single run, however.”
“It was hard luck, sir.”
“Do you play?”
“Next year, I hope. I’m a wicket-keeper.”
Lenox lifted his hat and made a note in his mind to have a catch with the boy upon his return — but now there was no time, if he wanted to chase down his quarry. He dug his heels into the horse’s side and she dug her powerful back legs into the turf and bounded forward, almost immediately pushing herself into a hard run. Lenox had to clamp down his hat with his hand.
He had been riding over the fields since he arrived in Plumbley. He preferred that to riding along the road, but there was no question he was faster upon the dirt, even in wet weather. Sadie fled through the miles, after three or four still not even in any kind of sweat. He slowed her to a trot for a moment, thinking he ought to rest her, then decided he could trot all the way home if need be — he would catch up with Frederick, Oates, and Wells now if he could. He had seen a few old carts along the road, and one or two solitary riders, but it was relatively empty — the rain, perhaps.
As a result he saw the fresh rut of their tracks very clearly. There was a hard shoulder to the road that Sadie ran along. Good — another advantage in speed. Chalmers might be stopped and taking the mud off of the wheels right now.
Lenox rode hard for forty-five minutes before he started to doubt whether he would catch them at all. He was out of breath, Sadie too, and Lord knew how long ahead the carriage had gotten. Even at a brisk trot Freddie’s horses kept a pretty lively pace.
Yet just as the first thought of turning back entered his mind he saw something a quarter mile down the straight road. It was a black hump in the middle of the path.
“That had better be a log,” he muttered as he rode along toward it.
It was not; with a pulse of alarm throughout his whole body he saw that the figure was human, and in no very great state of health.
“Hoa!” he called down to Sadie when they were close and clicked his tongue; without any jerk in the saddle she pulled up. Down the road he shouted, “Hello? Hello?”
When there was no response he fairly leapt from the horse, trusting the beast to stay where she was — which she did — and ran to the body, falling to his knees beside it, praying that it was not Frederick. He turned the body onto its back.
It was Chalmers, dead. Upon his white shirt was a great bloom of bright red blood.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Or was he dead? Crouched over Chalmers, Lenox thought he saw a flutter in the man’s closed eyelids. Quickly he put two fingers to his throat and then waited, not breathing himself to make his hand more steady.
Yes, a pulse. It was barely there, but the groom was alive.
The question was what to do now. There had been a turnoff to the village of West Buckland less than a mile before, but down the road two miles was a larger village, Wellington. Would he have a better chance of finding a competent doctor there?
Chalmers’s pulse was so inconstant, his breath so shallow, however, that Lenox decided he would go to the closer town and pray for the best. He stanched the wound — in the upper stomach, near the ribs — with a towel from Sadie’s saddlebag, then took off his own riding jacket and wrapped it as tightly as he could around Chalmers’s midsection. When this was done he pulled the man up and over the horse’s haunch, very gingerly. Then he mounted the horse himself and nudged her into motion.
It was a delicate operation, riding to West Buckland; he wanted speed, but he didn’t want to jostle Chalmers. Fortunately the village was close — in fifteen minutes he had reached it. His heart lifted when he saw that there was a doctor’s red cross painted on a white sign over a door on the cobblestoned Main Street, just next to the pub.
“Doctor!” he called out to the empty street, still on his horse. “I need a doctor! A police constable, too!”
Nobody came out. He rode up just alongside the door and kicked it hard, trying to rouse somebody, but to his despair there was still no answer.
Just then a man appeared several doors down, pale, young, and with ink-black hair. “May I help?”
“Where is the doctor?”
The young man took in the situation. “A wound? The doctor is — well, perhaps I should look.”
“Are you a doctor?”
He shook his head. “A veterinarian. But the doctor, by this hour—”
He had an honest face. “What, drink?”
“Bring him here,” said the young man, and then called back into his office for his assistant. “What is his malady?”
“I found him upon the road, shot,” said Lenox.
The young man nodded, calmly. Together the three of them took Chalmers past several waiting dogs and cats, one goat, and into the young veterinarian’s office.
“I need to find the men who did this,” Lenox said. “Do all you can for him — spare no expense. I am at Everley, but I shall return soon.”
“You’re leaving him here with—” Lenox handed the young surgeon a card. The lad looked at it and nodded. “Mr. Lenox.”
“I or one of my friends shall return, you have my word of it.”
In the street several boys were gawking at Sadie, touching the place on her withers that was slick with blood. “What happened, sir, please?” asked one of the boys.
“Where is the police station?” asked Lenox. The same boy pointed down the street. “You shall have a half- crown if you give this horse water and oats.”
The boys burst into activity—“There, sir, it’ll be a moment,” “Oats
The constable there was quick-witted, fortunately. He had heard of Wells’s arrest, knew Lenox’s name, and agreed to help. The only question was what they should do.
“There are so many paths they might have taken off the main road,” said the constable, Jeffers.
