'It's all bulge and no bang with you, Sam,' Flossie said, grinning.
'We ain't going to hurt no one,' Sally said earnestly, 'and we're only trying to help someone.
'I won't tell anyone you're here,' Flossie promised. 'Why should I?'
'So who's here tonight?' Berrigan asked.
She rattled off a list of names, none of which was of interest to Sandman, for neither the Marquess of Skavadale nor Lord Robin Holloway were included. Flossie was certain neither man was in the club. 'I don't mind the Marquess,' she said, ''cos he's a proper gentlemen, but Lord bleeding Robin, he's a bastard.' She pulled her shoe back on, yawned and stood up. 'I'd better go and make sure his lordship ain't missing me. He'll want his supper soon.' She frowned. 'I don't mind working here,' she went on, 'the rhino's good, it's comfortable, but I bloody hate sitting down to supper naked. Makes you feel queer, it does, all the men dressed bang up and us skinned to nothing.' She opened the door and shook her head. 'And I always spill the bloody soup.'
'You will keep mum, Flossie?' Berrigan asked anxiously.
She blew him a kiss. 'For you, Sam, anything,' she said, and was gone.
'For you, Sam, anything?' Sally asked.
'She don't mean nothing,' Berrigan said hastily.
'Mister Spofforth was right,' Sandman interrupted them.
'Right about what?' Sally wanted to know.
'She does have good legs.'
'Captain!' Sally was shocked.
'I've seen better,' Sergeant Berrigan said gallantly, and Sandman was pleased to see Sally blush.
'Out of interest,' Sandman asked as he went to the door, 'what does it cost to be a member here?' He opened the door a crack and peered out, but the corridor was empty.
'Two thousand to join, that's if you're invited, and a hundred a year,' Berrigan said.
The privileges of wealth, Sandman thought, and if the Countess of Avebury had been blackmailing one of the members, or even two or three of the members, then would they not kill her to preserve their place in this hedonistic mansion? He glanced back at the window. It was dark outside now, but it was the luminous dark of a summer night in a gas-lit town. 'Shall we find our coachman?' he asked Berrigan.
They went back down the servants' stairs and crossed the yard. The coach still glistened wetly on the cobbles, though the buckets were gone. Horses stamped in the stables as Berrigan went to the side door of the carriage house. He listened there for a few seconds, then raised two fingers to indicate that he thought there were two men on the door's far side. Sandman pulled the pistol from his coat pocket. He decided not to cock it for he did not want the gun to fire accidentally, but he checked it was primed then he edged Berrigan aside, opened the door and walked inside.
The room was a kitchen, tack room and store. A pot of water bubbled over a fire and a pair of candles burnt on the mantel and more stood on the table where two men, one young and one middle-aged, sat with tankards of ale and plates of bread, cheese and cold beef. They turned and stared when Sandman came in, and the older man, opening his mouth in astonishment, let his clay pipe drop so that its stem broke on the table's edge. Sally followed Sandman into the room, then Berrigan came in and closed the door.
'Introduce me,' Sandman said. He was not pointing the pistol at either man, but it was very obvious and the two could not take their eyes from it.
'The youngster's a stable hand,' Berrigan said, 'and he's called Billy, while the one with the jaw in his lap is Mister Michael Mackeson. He's one of the club's two coachmen. Where's Percy, Mack?'
'Sam?' Mackeson said faintly. He was a burly man, red-faced, with a fine waxed moustache and a shock of black hair that was turning grey at the temples. He was dressed well and could doubtless afford to be, for good drivers were paid extravagantly. Sandman had heard of a driver earning over two hundred pounds a year, and all of them were considered the possessors of an enviable skill, so enviable that every young gentleman wanted to be like them. Lordlings wore the same caped coats as the professionals and learnt to carry the whip in one hand and the bunched reins in the other, and there were so many aristocrats aspiring to be coachmen that no one could be sure whether any particular carriage was driven by a duke or a paid driver. Now, despite his elevated status, Mackeson just gaped at Berrigan who, like Sandman, had a pistol.
'Where's Percy?' Berrigan asked again.
'He's taken Lord Lucy to Weybridge,' Mackeson said.
'Let's hope you're the one we want,' Berrigan said. 'And you're not going anywhere, Billy,' he snapped at the stable hand, who was dressed in a shabby set of the Seraphim Club's yellow and black livery, 'not unless you want a broken skull.' The stable hand, who had been rising from the bench, subsided again.
Sandman was not aware of it, but he was angry suddenly. It was possible that the moustached coachman might have the answer Sandman had been searching for, and the notion that he might get this close and still not discover the truth had sparked his rage. It was a controlled rage, but it was in his voice, harsh and clipped, and Mackeson jumped with alarm when Sandman spoke. 'Some weeks ago,' Sandman said, 'a coachman from this club collected a maid from the Countess of Avebury's house in Mount Street. Was that you?'
Mackeson swallowed, but seemed unable to speak.
'Was that you?' Sandman asked again, louder.
Mackeson nodded very slowly, then glanced at Berrigan as if he did not believe what was happening to him.
'Where did you take her?' Sandman asked. Mackeson swallowed again, then jumped as Sandman rapped the pistol on the table. 'Where did you take her?' Sandman demanded again.
Mackeson turned from Sandman and frowned at Berrigan. 'They'll kill you, Sam Berrigan,' he said, 'kill you stone dead if they find you here.'
'Then they'd better not find me, Mack,' Berrigan said.
The coachman gave another start of alarm when he heard the ratcheting sound of Sandman's pistol being cocked. His eyes widened as he stared into the muzzle and uttered a pathetic moan. 'I'm only going to ask you politely once more,' Sandman said, 'and after that, Mister Mackeson, I shall…'
'Nether Cross,' Mackeson said hurriedly.
'Where's Nether Cross?'
'Fair old ways,' the coachman said guardedly. 'Seven hours? Eight hours?'
'Where?' Sandman asked harshly.
'Down near the coast, sir, down Kent way.'
'So who lives there,' Sandman asked, 'in Nether Cross?'
'Lord John de Sully Pearce-Tarrant,' Berrigan answered for the coachman, 'the Viscount Hurstwood, Earl of Keymer, Baron Highbrook, lord of this and lord of God knows what else, heir to the Dukedom of Ripon and also known, Captain, as the Marquess of Skavadale.'
And Sandman felt a great surge of relief. Because he had his answer at last.
===OO=OOO=OO===
The carriage rattled through the streets south of the Thames. Its two lamps were lit, but cast a feeble glow that did nothing to light the way so that, once they reached the summit of Shooters Hill where there were few lights and the road across Blackheath stretched impenetrably black before them, they stopped. The horses were unharnessed and picketed on the green and the two prisoners were locked inside the carriage by the simple expedient of fastening the coach doors by looping their handles with the reins that were then strapped tight around the whole vehicle. The windows were jammed shut with slivers of wood, and either Sandman or Berrigan would stand guard all night.
The prisoners were the driver, Mackeson, and Billy, the stable hand. It had been Berrigan's idea to take the Seraphim Club's newly washed carriage. Sandman had refused at first, saying he had already arranged to borrow Lord Alexander's coach and team and he doubted he had the legal right to commandeer one of the Seraphim Club's carriages, but Berrigan had scoffed at the thought of such scruples. 'You reckon Lord Alexander's coachman knows the way to Nether Cross?' he asked. 'Which means you've got to take Mackeson anyway, so you might as well take a vehicle he knows how to handle. And considering what evils the bastards have done I don't suppose God or man will worry about you borrowing their coach.'
And if the coach and driver were taken then Billy, the stable hand, had to be kept from betraying that Sandman had been asking about Meg, so he too must be taken prisoner. He put up no resistance, but instead
