“Perhaps we can begin,” Charles said, “by finding out what you know of the situation here.”
It took only a few moments for Alfred to tell what he knew, which turned out to be not a very great deal. Kitty had been the one who had the contacts with the gang, it seemed. She had recruited Alfred when they were both at Carleton House in Manchester, and she had obtained both their positions at Welbeck Abbey. When they were finished there, she’d got posts for them at Blenheim, working through a London agency. The two of them had been at the palace for a week or so when she told Alfred that a man named Bulls-eye was making the arrangements for the job, which would take place during the Royal visit. Alfred himself had met Bulls-eye only twice, once with Kitty, some weeks ago, and again more recently, at the Black Prince, when he had gone to ask about Kitty.
“I haven’t heard anything more from him,” he said, “until today, when-” He stopped.
Charles and Winston exchanged glances. “Yes?” Charles prompted. “What happened today?” Alfred was about to say that Ned had appeared, he thought, sent by Bulls-eye to make contact with him.
But Alfred appeared to have second thoughts about mentioning Ned. He shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything from him at all,” he said. “Don’t know whether they’re still planning the job. Nobody’s told me anything.”
Winston took a step forward. “Miss Deacon,” he said in a low voice. “Is she a part of this?”
“Miss Deacon?” Alfred said, sounding puzzled. “I don’t think so-but then, what do I know? As I said, nobody’s told me anything.” His eyes narrowed. “For aught I know, you two could be part of the gang. You could-”
There was a noise outside, and the door opened. Charles turned and to his surprise saw Kate in the doorway, still wrapped in her dressing gown. She was holding a lamp in one hand, its gleam shadowing half her face.
“I need to see you, Charles,” she said urgently.
In one stride, Charles was at the door, blocking her view of what lay on the floor. He pushed her outside and closed the door behind them. “I told you to go to bed, Kate.”
“I know,” Kate said. She had dressed and flung a shawl around her shoulders, but she was visibly shivering in the damp chill. “I wouldn’t have come looking for you, but I found this and thought you ought to see it right away.” She thrust a folded paper into his hand. “I went into your bedroom to get another pillow from your bed and noticed this, lying on the floor. Someone must have pushed it under the door. Please-you need to read both sides.”
Charles unfolded the paper and read it, as Kate held the lamp. Then he turned it over and read the note signed T.E.L. Ned’s note, written in his boyish hand.
“Damn,” he whispered. “I thought he was too smart to pull a grandstand stunt like this.”
“You have to go after him,” Kate said. “But please, dear, be careful.”
Charles put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her quickly. “I will,” he said. “Go back to bed.”
“Be careful,” Kate said again, and was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Human blood is heavy. The man who has shed it cannot run away.
The rain had stopped but the damp wind licked at the candle in the lantern so that it flickered tremulously, casting grotesque shadows across the path to Rosamund’s Well. The darkness clung to Ned like a damp, suffocating shroud, a crowded darkness, dense with the darker bulk of ancient oaks, the lake filled with liquid ebony, the sky heavy with black, malefic powers. It was a noisy darkness, too, a babble of sly, secretive sounds: the joints of old trees creaking like old bones, the shrubby willows whispering treacherously, the black lake lapping greedily at the blacker shore, the faraway thunder rumbling in grim, deep-throated displeasure.
Ned was a town boy, and although he knew the lanes and hedgerows around Oxford by daylight, he had little experience of the countryside at night, for his mother insisted that all of her boys be at home before darkness fell. Now, it was dark, very dark, frighteningly dark, and Ned wished that he was safely back in Oxford, in his bedroom, surrounded by his books and rubbings and collections of medieval artifacts. But he loathed that wishing part of himself, that anxious, spineless, cowardly part, and he subdued it as well as he could, focusing his attention on the flickering circle of light cast by the candle-lantern, counting his footsteps to distract himself from the shifting shadows and whispering dark. One, two… fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight…
And then he was at the Well, and the sweet innocence of the burbling, bubbling spring was added to the cunning cacaphony of night sounds. Ned held up the lantern, peering through the blackness around him.
“Is anyone here?” he whispered, and then, having barely heard his own voice, raised it, trying to make it strong, make it casual and cool. “Anyone here?”
There was no reply. No human reply, that is. From the hillside behind the Well came a quavering Whooo? Fright loosened Ned’s knees, and he suddenly regretted his shabby trickery, regretted his agreement to Lord Sheridan’s beguiling proposal, regretted the whole rotten, damned day, from bloody start to bloody finish.
Whooo?
There was a great rush of wings in the darkness, and after a moment of strained listening, Ned gave a short laugh of scornful bravado. It’s only an owl, you bloody coward, he told himself. Next thing, he’d be blubbering like a baby. He set the candle-lantern on the ground. What sort of idiot was frightened by an owl? But there was no quieting the rapid trip-hammer pounding of his heart, which throbbed so loudly in his ears that it smothered the other night sounds.
But not all. Behind him, a branch snapped and he whirled. “Who’s there?” he demanded, his voice cracking.
“Who d’ye think?” came a low, wary growl out of the blackness.
Apprehensive, Ned sucked in his breath. “Bulls-eye?” he said tentatively.
There was a longish pause. Then the fierce demand: “Who the hell are you?”
Silently, Ned cursed himself. Instead of counting his steps, he should have been inventing an explanation for his appearance at the Well, some sort of fabrication that would win Bulls-eye’s confidence and extract the information Lord Sheridan wanted. Aloud, and almost desperately, he said, “I’m… Foxy.”
Another pause, then a chuckle, its bonhomie even fiercer than the demand. “Foxy, eh? That’s a good ’un, that is. Well, then, Foxy-if that’s yer name-what’s yer game?”
Ned’s apprehension grew, for while the voice coming out of the darkness was rather more genial now, it was also rather nearer, although he could not tell from which direction it came.
But he steadied himself and made a breezy reply. “Same as your game, Bulls-eye. Same as the game at Welbeck, and here, with the King’s visit.” He paused, listening. Hearing nothing, no snap of twig, no rustle of leaf, he went on. “Alfred’s on late duty t’night and couldn’t get away, so he sent me. Said to tell you he wants to know if there’s any news of Kitty. And he wants to know the plan, too-what you said in your note.”
“Oh, ’e does, does ’e?”
The voice, even more menacing, was even nearer. A great, sinister hush seemed to have fallen over the woods, although the lake seemed to lap even more greedily, licking up the shore. The candle-lantern flickering at Ned’s feet cast wicked, twining shadows, like black ropes.
“That’s right,” Ned said, with a studied carelessness. “Alfred showed me your note. He said to tell you that he wants to know what-”
And then suddenly there was an arm around his neck, an iron arm in a rough woolen sleeve that smelt of tobacco and garlic and stale beer. The crushing grip flattened his larynx and cut off his air, at the same time that he felt a sharp, painful jab in the small of his back.
“Alfred wants t’know, does Alfred?” the gravelly voice demanded. “Well, I got somethin’ I wants t’know, Foxy. Wot’s the gull?” The evil mouth came close to Ned’s ear. “Wot’s the gull, I say!”
Ned’s hands came up and he struggled to break the choking hold. But the knife-for it was a knife, he knew- was rammed more sharply into his back, and he forced himself to stop struggling. “Wot’s the gull?” the voice said again, harsher now. “Who’re you?”
