A Corpse in Shining Armour (36 page)

‘If you don’t believe me when I tell the truth, there’s no point in talking, is there?’ I said.

I turned and walked slowly in the direction of the main road, expecting with every step that he’d come after me. Instead he
called out.

‘You can give Miles a message from me.’

I walked on. He shouted again.

‘Tell him he can ride the black horse tomorrow, and I wish him joy of it.’

I stopped and turned then, caught by the oddity of the message. Stephen was still standing there by the gates of the asylum,
a tall black figure against the pale road. I decided not to ask him what he meant by it and walked on quickly, relieved when
I came to the main road with people and horses going up and down.

My heart was still thumping hard, so I made myself walk slowly back to the inn. Instead of going in by the main door, I went
through the arch into the yard. As I’d hoped, there was the glow of a pipe in the twilight and the unmistakeably tall silhouette
of Amos by the back door.

‘Where’ve you been then?’ he said to me, without even turning to look.

‘Walking.’

I was still too disturbed by the meeting to want to tell anybody, even Amos. Instead I asked him how the horses were settling.

‘Well enough. They’re most of them used to being in different quarters. Our two ate up their feed like good ’uns.’

It was soothing, being among the horses. We strolled together from box to box, watching one nuzzling its hay manger, one asleep
with legs folded in neatly like a cat, one swaying gently on its feet. As we went, I counted them. Four black mares for the
mourning coach, then the row of taller geldings to pull the hearse,…four, five, six, seven.

‘There’s too many,’ I said to Amos, pausing by the last box. ‘Or are they keeping one spare?’

‘No, that’s the saddle horse. Mr Lomax was down after dinner to see it’s all being done right, and he told us. One seventeen-hand
gelding to be ridden on the first stage in front of the hearse, making seven altogether.’

‘So who’s riding him?’

Amos gave his pipe a long pull to keep it glowing and looked at me.

‘His heir. That’s what Mr Lomax said. His son and heir.’

So that was what Stephen meant. By letting Miles ride the black horse at the head of the funeral procession tomorrow, he’d
be publicly acknowledging his brother’s right to title, fortune and bride. After all this, total surrender.

Only the way Stephen had said it hadn’t sounded like surrender in the least.

I told Amos about meeting Stephen and we discussed it until the last of the light went and bats were flying across the stable
yard. The essential decency of Amos made him believe there were limits to what a man would do.

‘I could understand Mr Stephen wanting to knock Mr Miles down,’ he said. ‘He’s done that once already. But they’re brothers.
I don’t reckon he’d do worse than that.’

‘You said yourself it’s all in the breeding. And you didn’t see Stephen tonight.’

‘Did he threaten anything?’

‘Not as such, no. But…’ It was hard to put into words the impression he’d made on me. ‘It was as if he’d decided something
and there was no going back.’

‘I don’t see there’s much he can do,’ Amos said. ‘There’ll be enough people watching. Not unless he rides up to the procession
tomorrow and challenges Mr Miles to fight him.’

‘Oh gods, Amos. You don’t think he’d do that?’

The idea hadn’t occurred to me, but once spoken it seemed all too likely. It was what they’d been practising for weeks, after
all. It even came as something of a relief after what I’d been imagining.

‘And there’s the business of the armour,’ I said. ‘We still don’t know what’s become of it. Suppose Stephen’s planning to
arrive on a pure white charger in the ancestral armour.’

‘Worth seeing,’ Amos said.

I was tempted to agree with him. Also, it would puff this absurdity of a funeral procession into the laughing stock that Lord
Brinkburn’s life deserved.

‘It’s still dangerous,’ I said. ‘Miles won’t be wearing armour. If Stephen has got his hands on a lance with a point to it,
he could run him through.’

Amos still wasn’t convinced.

‘Only if Mr Miles is daft enough to sit there and let him do it. What are you thinking of doing, then? Telling Mr Lomax to
watch out tomorrow?’

‘I don’t trust Lomax. Besides, he’s a lawyer and he’d want evidence. All I have is a feeling.’

Amos tapped out his pipe.

‘Tell you what I’ll do, if it’ll make you sleep better. I’ll borrow a horse tomorrow and make sure I’m not far away from Mr
Miles.’

I said, meaning it, that yes it would make me sleep better. With Amos on the alert, Miles should be as well protected as if
he had a squadron of the Household Cavalry round him. I only hoped he deserved it.

Next morning, I was down at the stable yard before six o’clock. The cavalcade wasn’t due to set out from the asylum until
eleven, but the grooms had been up and active from first light, putting a final polish on to the horses’ already gleaming
coats with linen cloths, oiling hooves to jet blackness. Amos was in the gelding’s box, plaiting his mane. He told me nothing
had been seen yet of Miles or Mr Lomax. He’d heard that Miles was staying with a friend in another part of the town. I went
inside for breakfast. By the time I came out, the first two pairs of horses were on their way to Newlands. Amos went out next
with our two, riding the gelding bareback and leading the mare. He winked at me as he went and promised to be back in plenty
of time to pick up another horse so that he could keep an eye on our man. Soon after the last of the ten black carriage horses
had left the yard, a groom came from wherever Miles was staying to collect the big saddle horse.

The yard seemed empty with them all gone, but then people started arriving with bags and baskets because the London to Chichester
stage was due. It arrived in the usual hurry, with a confusion of passengers and luggage descending and alighting and grooms
pushing people aside to change the horses. It left full up inside, with three riding on top. As it was grinding out of the
yard through the archway, a man came running up. Behind the coachman’s back, he jumped on the passenger step then bounded
up, grabbed the rail round the top of the coach and swung himself on to an outside seat. It was done as deftly as a circus
trick. He sat down with the other outside passengers, coolly raising his hat to acknowledge the laughter and ironic cheers
of people watching.

‘There’s a fellow doesn’t believe in paying fares,’ someone said.

The man’s athleticism was all the more surprising because, from the glance I’d had of him, he wasn’t young and had the use
of only one arm. The left one had flapped limply at his side as he jumped. I might have thought more about it at the time,
but one of the passengers from London who had got out of the coach was standing and staring at me.

‘Miss Lane.’

Robert Carmichael seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was dressed in black and looked near exhaustion, face
pale and eyes feverish.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

Not a polite question, but I couldn’t help it. Of all people, he seemed one of the least likely to want to honour the late
Lord Brinkburn.

‘I suppose I owe it to him,’ he said.

In a conventional situation, it would have been perfectly reasonable for the tutor of the late lord’s sons to take a modest
place in his cortège. Did Carmichael really expect me to believe that was the case here? Then I remembered that he didn’t
know I knew that he’d knocked his late lordship downstairs.

‘Is Lomax here?’ he said.

‘Yes, but I haven’t seen him. He may have gone straight to Newlands.’

‘Newlands?’

‘The asylum.’

He looked ready to drop from weariness.

‘It’s not far,’ I said. ‘If you like, I’ll walk with you and show you. You’d just have time for a coffee first, if you wanted.’

I wasn’t simply being charitable. Whatever his reason for being there, he might have some influence on his former pupils,
though I doubted if it would be enough to prevent whatever Stephen intended. He nodded, thanked me and disappeared inside.

I found Amos in the tack room and told him about the man jumping on the stagecoach.

‘He looked very much like the clown from Astley’s,’ I said. ‘If he’s here, he’s working for one of them, probably Stephen.’

Amos agreed. By daylight, he seemed disposed to take my suspicions more seriously.

‘Still, why was he getting out before anything starts?’ he said.

‘Perhaps he’s done whatever Stephen wanted him to do.’

‘In that case, why isn’t he just taking himself back to Astley’s? He’s going in the wrong direction. Unless he’s planning
to meet us next stop.’

‘Next stop?’

‘Esher’s next stop for the stagecoach. Next stop for the coffin too, but with the speed that’ll be going, it’ll be evening
before it gets there.’

‘At that rate, it will take them a week to get to Portsmouth.’

He grinned.

‘Today’s the slow day. After that, the mourning coach and the first lot of horses go back and they pick up a bit of speed,
by hearse standards any road. Mr Lomax is staying with them all the way to the boat to see things are done properly, but the
rest of them go home tonight.’

‘So will today be the only day Miles is riding with them?’

‘That’s right. If Mr Stephen is planning anything, it’s got to be here or at Esher, or somewhere in between.’

He quickly tacked up the cob he’d arranged to borrow and set out again for Newlands.

Soon after that, Robert Carmichael emerged from the inn, looking refreshed by the coffee. It was twenty to eleven, so we set
out briskly along the road. As we walked, I told him my theory about Stephen. He shook his head.

‘No, I don’t believe that of him. If it were the other way round, I might. There’s a wild streak in Miles, but apart from
anything else, Stephen wouldn’t make himself look ridiculous.’

‘I think he’s beyond worrying about that. He’s on the point of losing everything. Did you know Sophia had signed that paper
for Miles?’

‘Not until it was too late, no.’

‘And that Miles has taken Stephen’s fiancée?’ I said.

‘Nothing has been announced officially.’

‘But all of London is talking about it. You must know Stephen better than most people. Have you any idea what he’ll do?’

He shook his head. I was letting myself grow angry, oppressed with the idea that something was going to happen and we could
do nothing about it.

‘What in the world was he doing last night, on his own by the gates to the asylum?’ I said. ‘Where was he all the time he
was missing from London?’

‘I can’t answer that. All I can say is if you expect me to believe Stephen is going to try to kill his brother, I simply don’t.’

‘Somebody killed Simon Handy,’ I said.

We walked in silence for a while. Then he said quietly: ‘We buried Sophia yesterday.’

‘Have they held the inquest on her?’

‘Yesterday morning. The verdict was accidental death. They decided she drank too much laudanum, meaning only to sleep, and
was sufficiently confused to get into the boat, as she sometimes did.’

With a country jury, sparing the feelings of a prominent family, the verdict hardly came as a surprise.

‘I suppose you gave evidence,’ I said.

‘Yes, I did.’

It was a simple statement. There wasn’t a trace of combativeness or evasion in him. He was too tired for that, as if he’d
been living on his nerves for a long time. As before, I was caught between feeling liking and pity for him, but still nagged
by a sense of something hidden.

I asked him if anything had been said at the inquest about the extra bottle of laudanum.

‘It was mentioned that there was an empty bottle her maid couldn’t account for. Nothing more.’

‘The police think they know where it came from,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t mentioned at the inquest because they couldn’t
prove it.’

I told him about Tabby, and my theory that Lady Brinkburn had met her and asked her to buy the laudanum. He shook his head.

‘Sophia had more pride than that. She’d rather have gone without than got some girl she hardly knew to run errands behind
Betty’s back and mine. She was a deeply honourable woman.’

Perhaps he caught some doubt on my face.

‘Miss Lane, some time ago I asked if you’d believe me when I told you that Lady Brinkburn and I were not lovers. You were
kind enough to say that you would.’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t say it then. There were reasons. But it’s only just to her memory to say so now. Sophia was more kind and generous
to me than any man had a right to expect, but we were never lovers. She lived and died an entirely faithful wife to a husband
who treated her shamefully.’

We turned into the side road.

‘So, do you believe me?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you for that.’

We said nothing more until we came within sight of the asylum. Its gates stood open to the road.

‘Even if you don’t believe me about Stephen and Miles, please do what you can,’ I said. ‘Keep as close to Miles as possible.’

Most of my trust was in Amos, but it was just possible that Robert Carmichael might have some effect. When we came to the
top of the drive, I told him he should walk on ahead.

‘You’re here by right,’ I said. ‘I’m not.’

But I was still puzzled about his presence there. He nodded, and to my surprise, reached out and touched my hand.

‘Thank you for being concerned, for Sophia and for them too. I hope to see you when it’s over.’

I watched him walk down the drive. A group of people and three vehicles stood in front of the house. The hearse and mourning
carriage now had their teams of horses attached to them and were a fine sight in their way, like some great monument in ebony
and silver. The hearse had broad glass panels at the back and sides to give a clear view of the coffin, which was draped in
black velvet with gold braid edging. A knight’s helmet, brightly burnished and looking remarkably like the ancestral one that
had belonged to Sir Gilbert, stood on top of the coffin. There was even a small page, or ‘tiger’ standing on the step at the
back of the hearse, dressed in black velvet breeches and tunic and a black tricorne hat. Lord Brinkburn had contrived a grand
spectacle for himself, perhaps in the knowledge that nobody cared enough to do it for him.