Death in the Peerless Pool (26 page)

In the distance he could see its uncontrolled velocity slow a fraction as it reached the flatter terrain at the bottom of the hill. But the reduction in pace was not enough. Crashing towards the riverbank, the coach thundered into the Avon, the driver shooting off his box like a rag doll, his very limpness indicating to John that he had already hit his head and lost consciousness before entering the water. Running like a hare, the Apothecary sped towards the scene of the accident.

A couple of fishermen were already there before him, one swimming round frantically, the other standing with a rope ready to throw to the coachman. Without hesitation, John flung off his coat, hat and shoes and dived in, keeping his eyes open, looking for the unconscious man, wondering whether he might be trapped as he hadn't yet come to the surface.

Jack was at the bottom, right enough. In a grim parody of the way in which Hannah Rankin had been found, the coachman lay on the riverbed, one of the carriage wheels on his chest, weighing him down so that even if he regained consciousness he would drown. Frenziedly, John tore at the obstruction but it was too heavy for him. Not wasting a moment, he shot to the surface, dashing the water from his eyes as he reached the top.

‘He's down here,' he called to the other swimmer. ‘There's a wheel on his chest. Can you help me?'

The fisherman nodded, and the two men dived together to where Jack lay trapped. Heaving in unison, they shifted the obstructing wheel and the fisherman, bigger and brawnier than John, placed his hands under the coachman's inert arms and drew him to the surface. His companion had waded in thigh deep, ready to give assistance, and it was he who grabbed Jack and pulled him on to the bank. Scrambling out of the water, John rushed to apply every technique he knew to save those who had almost lost their lives through drowning, only hoping he was in time for this poor young man.

To tip Jack up and empty the water from his lungs, something that the Apothecary would have done to a child, was an impossible feat with an adult. Instead, John turned the coachman on his face, pulled his mouth open, and pumped furiously on his lungs from the back to force the fluid out. After a few minutes of silence, during which the Apothecary feared the worst, Jack finally spluttered and the water poured from his mouth.

‘You've saved him,' said the fisherman who had brought the coachman to the surface.

‘Yes,' John answered, investigating the cut on Jack's head and thinking it needed a stitch. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Did you see what happened?'

‘The coach shot over the embankment into the river. Only missed our boat by a few feet. There was no sign of the horses.'

‘I'm not surprised. They broke loose from the trace.'

‘Completely? That's unusual.'

‘Almost impossible,' the Apothecary answered grimly. He stood up. ‘Look, this poor fellow comes from Welham House. Perhaps you could help him get back …' He stopped short. ‘No, on second thoughts, I think he might be better off in The Ship until I return for him. Could you carry him there?'

‘Yes, quite easily. But what are you going to do? He's been injured and might need attention.'

‘I won't be long,' said John, ‘but I must go in search of those horses. There's something I want to look at.'

Halfway up the hill he found them, grazing in a field, still joined together by their harness, which had not been damaged at all during the frenetic flight. Making encouraging noises, the Apothecary approached the second pair, the two who would actually have stood directly in front of the coach, the trace, the bar attached to the vehicle to which the back pair of horses was secured, between them. They were quite docile, only looking up in mild interest as he picked up their tack and examined it.

It was just as he thought. The long strap, attached at one end to the horse's collar, at the other to the strut running across beneath the driver's box, had been almost cut through with a knife, the remaining thread torn jaggedly by the terrific strain it had been put under when the creatures started to pull. This had been done on both sides, so there was no question of the tear being accidental. Further, the buckle of the shaft tug, the small piece of leather that secured the horse to the central trace, had simply been left undone, again on both animals, a fact that might easily be overlooked by a coachman in a hurry.

So a person unknown had deliberately set out to destroy the harness with the clear intention of causing an accident. But why? Was it, John wondered, because Jack knew too much and had been on the point of telling someone the entire story?

Things began to happen rather fast. Wondering if Coralie could possibly be in danger, yet horribly aware that an injured man required his help, John finally compromised by running to The Ship and paying a fisherman's lad to go to Welham House with a note. This he wrote in great haste in the ale-house, signing it Serafina, and asking Coralie to return to Bath at once as her presence was urgently required. Then he took a barely coherent Jack back on the ferry and straight round to a physician who stitched the wound on the coachman's head with two sutures made of gut. This done, the Apothecary booked Jack in at The Bear and put him to bed with a strong dose of laudanum to sleep off the effects of his terrible experience.

It was by now six o'clock and John had not yet dined. Indeed, he was ravenously hungry after all the exercise he had taken. Yet his worries about Coralie would not permit him to leave The Bear, knowing that she would come back there as soon as she was able. Therefore he was not best pleased when young Sidmouth, Orlando's crony, came strutting in and called his name.

‘My dear Mr Rawlings, there you are. I have been sent to fetch you.'

‘Fetch me? Where?'

‘To Lyndsey's. Orlando and Violetta have gone there for a late dinner and asked me to convey you to them.'

The Apothecary felt a surge of irritability. ‘And who is Violetta, pray?'

Sidmouth's little mouth formed a small O of surprise. ‘Why, the Marchesa of course. I thought you knew her.'

‘Not well enough to be on Christian name terms,' John answered, feeling anger set in with a vengeance.

‘Oh, I see. Well, my dear, are you ready?'

There was no way out of the situation. The only thing was to go to Lyndsey's with as good a grace as possible. Yet the thought of Orlando rising from his sickbed in order to accompany Coralie back into town filled John with that most uncomfortable of emotions – jealousy.

Even though the dining hour was passed, Lyndsey's was packed with ladies drinking tea and bright young sparks imbibing stronger stuff. Orlando sat at his usual table, looking at death's very portal, his face so pale that the Apothecary thought he had no need of enamel to whiten his complexion. Wondering to what extent the beau was involved in the near-fatal coach accident, and whether that might he the cause of the young man's ravaged appearance, John sat down. Coralie, in her role as elderly diplomat's wife, did little more than exchange a few pleasantries with him, a fact that depressed him even further. Determined to get something out of the evening, John decided his only course of action was to find out as much as he could about what had taken place at Welham House that day.

‘I thought you were ill, my friend,' he said, addressing Orlando. ‘I had not expected to see you up and about quite so soon.'

The beau shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘It was either that or the prospect of staying at home in the clutches of my beloved uncle. So when the beautiful Marchesa called to see and cheer me, she inspired me to brave the rigours of Bath once more.' He took a deep mouthful of wine. ‘But I haven't said how pleased I am to see you, my dear. I could hardly believe my good fortune when Robin told me you had returned to us.'

John felt guilty. There could be no doubt that Orlando genuinely meant what he said.

‘I had an excuse to return and having enjoyed such congenial company on my last visit I came as quickly as I could.'

‘Excellent,' answered the beau. ‘One meets so few fellow spirits in this dreary life that I believe anyone of merit should be cultivated.'

The Apothecary couldn't help it. ‘I wouldn't have thought of myself as quite the sort of person you would like. A bit too down-to-earth, perhaps.'

Orlando shook his head, and John got the impression that even his neck hurt. ‘I admire that in you. It is part of your charm that a little bit of you is a dull fellow. We can't all be birds of paradise.'

It was said with such insouciance that John could not but chuckle. Beside him he felt Coralie quiver as she tried not to laugh out loud. Feeling in a better mood, the Apothecary turned to her.

‘So, Marchesa, did you meet Sir Vivian Sweeting today?'

His mistress looked him in the eye, trying to tell him something. Unfortunately John was not quite certain what it was.

‘Oh yes,' she answered blithely. ‘He was very delightful to me. Sadly, though, Orlando's uncle had to go to Bristol and so could not ask me to dine.'

‘But he wants you to come later in the week,' the beau put in. ‘I think he was very taken with you, Madam.'

‘Such compliments,' said Coralie, and fluttered her fan.

John leant forward. ‘Who drove him to Bristol, pray?'

Orlando looked thoroughly startled. ‘His coachman. Why?'

‘Do you mean Jack?'

‘No. Jack's the second coachman. Ruggins drove him. Why are you asking these questions?'

Deciding that he would learn nothing by secrecy, John said, ‘Because this afternoon Jack was involved in a very serious accident which I happened to see for myself. I had crossed the river to do some walking and to look for herbs when I saw a runaway coach heading down the hill outside your gates. The horses had broken free and galloped off in a panic. The coach plunged into the Avon, throwing Jack in as well.'

Orlando's eyes bulged in his head and he looked as if he were about to have a fit. ‘Oh my God! Oh God's mercy! Is he …?'

‘No, he's alive. I ran to give what help I could but two fishermen had got to the scene before me. Between us, we got him up and brought him back from the dead.'

‘But how …?'

John risked all. ‘Listen! Later on I found the horses in a field. They were still wearing their harness. I examined it carefully. The two leading straps had been almost cut through, cut to the point where the first bit of strain would make them snap. Further, just to make certain that the horses would slip from the trace, the shaft tug buckle had been left undone. Whoever took the coach out that day would have had very little chance of survival once it gathered speed.'

It was not possible for Orlando to look worse, so harrowed were his features. He tried to speak but no words came out.

‘I see you are shocked, my friend. And I am not surprised at it. Whatever the differences in your station, you must have regarded Jack as a childhood companion.'

The beau got to his feet, swaying. ‘He was my greatest confidant,' he gasped, then he staggered from the room, everyone staring at him, audible remarks being made about drunkenness and lack of manners.

John looked from Coralie to young Sidmouth, ‘Should I go after him?'

‘I think you'd better,' Coralie interjected, while Robin stuttered something about Orlando preferring to be alone.

But the Apothecary's instincts to tend the sick made up his mind for him. As discreetly as he could, he left the table and followed Orlando out into the twilight. The beau had crossed the road and was splashing his face with water from a small fountain, his shoulders heaving, though he wasn't audibly sobbing.

Banging his feet so that Orlando would hear him and not take fright, John approached. ‘My friend, don't distress yourself. Jack is alive and will make a complete recovery, I assure you of that.'

The other turned. ‘Yet somebody attacked him, somebody set a trap for him, that is what is so terrible.'

‘Who did it? Do you know?'

‘Not for sure, no.'

‘But you have an inkling?'

‘Certainly.'

John laid his hand on the beau's arm and saw him wince with pain. ‘What is the matter with you, Orlando? What has made you ill?' he asked quietly.

The same terrible expression that the Apothecary had seen before appeared in Orlando's eyes. ‘My sins,' he said, with a parody of a laugh.

John looked at him closely. ‘Somebody's beaten you, haven't they? You can hardly move.'

The beau wept. ‘Oh God, John. It is almost too much to bear.'

‘Let me have a look. Let me dress your wounds.'

Orlando drew away. ‘Nobody shall see. My shame shall not be shown to the world.'

‘I am hardly that. I am an apothecary, not some gawking busybody. I am used to such things.'

‘Not like this, you're not.'

‘Who did it? Sir Vivian?'

‘Of course. Who else?'

‘Is the man mad? Or just plain malicious?'

‘Both,' said Orlando, repeating that same terrible smile. ‘He is the Devil come to earth and put in human form.'

‘The children. The children he brought up? What is the truth about them?'

The beau shuddered, deep to his bone. ‘The truth is that none of us remained children for very long. Does that answer your question?'

‘Only too clearly,' said the Apothecary, then he put out his hand to support Orlando as he sunk to his knees, suddenly faint.

It had not been an easy evening. Every plea to the beau to allow John to examine him had met with an adamant refusal. In the end, the best that the combined forces of the Apothecary, Coralie and young Sidmouth could achieve was to persuade Orlando to book himself into The Katherine Wheel in the High Street and extract a half-hearted promise from him that if he were no better in the morning he would allow someone qualified to examine him. And with that they all had to be satisfied. Hungrier than ever, as he still had not eaten a thing, John saw the wretched young man into a chair and then went back to Lyndsey's to dine.