helped Mackeson harness the team and then, with his hands and feet tied, he was put into the carriage while Mackeson, accompanied by Berrigan, sat up on the box. The few members of the club, ensconced in their dining room, had no idea that their coach was being commandeered.
Now, stranded on Blackheath, Sandman and his companions had to wait through the dark hours. Berrigan took Sally to a tavern and paid for a room and he stayed with her while Sandman guarded the coach. It was not till after the clocks had struck two that Berrigan loomed out of the dark. 'Quiet night, Captain?'
'Quiet enough,' Sandman said, then smiled. 'Long time since I did picquet duty.'
'Those two behaving themselves?' Berrigan asked, glancing at the carriage.
'Quiet as lambs,' Sandman said.
'You can go to sleep,' Berrigan suggested, 'and I'll stand sentry.'
'In a while,' Sandman said. He was sitting on the grass, his back against a wheel and he tilted his head to look at the stars that were drifting out from behind ragged clouds. 'Remember the Spanish night marches?' he asked. 'The stars were so bright it was as though you could reach up and snuff them out.'
'I remember the camp fires,' Berrigan said, 'hills and valleys of fire.' He twisted and looked west. 'A bit like that.'
Sandman turned his head to see London spread beneath them like a quilt of fire that was blurred by the red- touched smoke. The air up on the heath was clean and chill, yet he could just smell the coal smoke from the great city that spread its hazed lights to the western horizon. 'I do miss Spain,' he admitted.
'It were strange at first,' Berrigan said, 'but I liked it. Did you speak the language?'
'Yes.'
Berrigan laughed. 'And I'll bet you were good at it.'
'I was fluent enough, yes.'
The Sergeant handed Sandman a stone bottle. 'Brandy,' he explained. 'And I was thinking,' he went on, 'that if I go and buy those cigars I'll need someone who speaks the language. You and me? We could go there together, work together.'
'I'd like that,' Sandman said.
'There's got to be money in it,' Berrigan said. 'We paid pennies for those cigars in Spain and here they cost a fortune if you can get them at all.'
'I think you're right,' Sandman said, and smiled at the thought that maybe he did have a job after all. Berrigan and Sandman, Purveyors of Fine Cigars? Eleanor's father liked a good cigar and paid well for them, so well that there might even be enough money in the idea to persuade Sir Henry that his daughter was not marrying a pauper. Lady Forrest might never be convinced that Sandman was a proper husband for Eleanor, but Sandman suspected that Eleanor and her father would prevail. He and Berrigan would need money, and who better than Sir Henry to lend it? They would have to travel around Spain, hire shipping space and rent premises in a fashionable part of London, but it could work. He was sure of it. 'It's a brilliant idea, Sergeant,' he said.
'So shall we do it when this is over?'
'Why not? Yes.' He put out his hand and Berrigan shook it.
'We old soldiers should stick together,' Berrigan said, 'because we were good. We were damned good, Captain. We chased the bloody Crapauds halfway across bloody Europe, and then we came home and none of the bastards here cared, did they?' He paused, thinking. 'They had a rule in the Seraphim Club. No one was ever to talk about the wars. No one.'
'None of the members served?' Sandman guessed.
'Not one. They wouldn't even let you in if you'd been a swoddy or a sailor.'
'They were jealous?'
'Probably.'
Sandman drank from the bottle. 'Yet they employed you?'
They liked having a guardsman in the hall. I made the bastards feel safe. And they could order me around, which they also liked. Do this, Berrigan, do that.' The Sergeant grunted thanks when Sandman passed him the bottle. 'Most of the time it weren't nothing bad. Run errands for the bastards, but then once in a while they'd want something else.' He fell silent and Sandman also kept quiet. The night was extraordinarily quiet. After a time, as Sandman hoped, Berrigan began talking again. 'Once, there was a fellow who was taking one of the Seraphim to court, so we gave him a lesson. They sent a wagonload of flowers to his grave, they did. And the girls, of course — we paid them off. Not the ones like Flossie, they can look after themselves, but the others? We gave 'em ten pounds, perhaps twelve.'
'What sort of girls?'
'Common girls, Captain, girls that had caught their eye on the street.'
'They were kidnapped?'
'They were kidnapped,' Berrigan said. 'Kidnapped, raped and paid off.'
'And all the members did that?'
'Some were worse than others. There's always a handful that are ready for any mischief, just like in a company of soldiers. And then there are the followers. And one or two of them are more sensible. That's why I was surprised it was Skavadale that scragged the Countess. He ain't a bad one. He's got a ramrod up his arse and he thinks he smells of violets, but he ain't an unkind man.'
'I rather hoped it would be Lord Robin,' Sandman admitted.
'He's just a mad bastard,' Berrigan said. 'Bloody rich, mad bastard,' he added.
'But Skavadale has more to lose,' Sandman explained.
'Lost most of it already,' Berrigan said. 'He's probably the poorest man there. His father's lost a fortune.'
'But the son,' Sandman explained, 'is betrothed to a very rich girl. Perhaps the wealthiest bride in Britain? I suspect he was ploughing the Countess of Avebury and she had a nasty habit of blackmail.' Sandman thought for a moment. 'Skavadale might be relatively poor, but I'll bet he could still scratch together a thousand pounds if he had to. That's probably the sort of money the Countess asked for if she was not to write a letter to the wealthy and religious bride to be.'
'So he killed her?' Berrigan asked.
'So he killed her,' Sandman said.
Berrigan thought for a moment. 'So why did they commission her portrait?'
'In one way,' Sandman said, 'that had nothing to do with the murder. It's simply that several of the Seraphim had rogered the Countess and they wanted her picture as a trophy. So poor Corday was painting away when Skavadale comes to visit. We know he came up the back stairs, the private way, and Corday was hurried off when the Countess realised one of her lovers had arrived.' Sandman was sure that was how it had happened. He imagined the silent awkwardness in the bedroom as Corday painted and the Countess lounged on the bed and made idle conversation with the maid. The charcoal would have scratched on the paper, then there would have been the sound of footsteps on the back service stairs and Corday's ordeal had begun.
Berrigan drank again, then passed the bottle to Sandman. 'So the girl Meg takes the pixie downstairs,' he said, 'and throws him out, then she goes back upstairs and finds what? The Countess dead?'
'Probably. Or dying, and she finds the Marquess of Skavadale there.' Would the Countess have been pleased to see the Marquess, Sandman wondered. Or was their adulterous tangle already at an end? Perhaps Skavadale had come to plead with her to withdraw her demands and the Countess, desperate for money, had probably laughed at him. Perhaps she hinted that he would have to pay even more, but somehow she drove him into a black rage in which he drew a knife. What knife? A man like Skavadale did not wear a knife, but perhaps there had been a knife in the room? Meg would know. Perhaps the Countess had been eating fruit and had had a paring knife which Skavadale seized and plunged into her, and afterwards, when she lay pale and dying on a bed of blood, he had the whimsy to put Corday's palette knife into one of her wounds. And then, or just about then, Meg had returned. Or perhaps Meg had overheard the fight and was waiting outside the room when Skavadale emerged.
'So why didn't he kill Meg as well?' the Sergeant asked.
'Because Meg isn't a threat to him,' Sandman guessed. 'The Countess threatened his betrothal to a girl who could probably pay off the mortgages on all his family's estates — all of them! And the Countess would have ended that engagement and there's no greater tragedy to an aristocrat than to lose his money, for with his money goes his status. They reckon they're born better than the rest of us, but they're not, they're just a lot richer, and they have to stay rich if they're to keep their illusions of superiority. The Countess could have put Skavadale in the
