Hidden in the Heart (11 page)

‘Quite right, too,’ Aunt Camilla concurred. ‘Not that you
were not monstrously brave and clever, but consider what
could have happened. You might have been murdered by
those cutthroats!’

‘Possibly.’ John shrugged, then went on with his story. ‘In
the end, I helped him to organize a search party. From the direction we - I - had seen the lights moving that night, I had a fair idea where their hiding place was located.’

Armed with this knowledge, it had not taken long before
they found the entrance to a cave, well hidden by rocks and
bracken. The entrance was small, but opened into quite a
large chamber, where boxes of smuggled liquor and other goods were stored. One fellow was posted just inside the
mouth of the cave, but he was easily overcome by the men
appointed as the executors of His Majesty’s justice.

Once they had seized the lookout, half of them waited in
the cave for the other members of the gang to arrive, while
several others were stationed at points nearby to capture
any who might try to escape through the woods. They had
not long to wait. That evening, when the rest of the gang
came to collect some of their loot, they were no match for
armed men who had been warned what to expect.

‘And none of them escaped?’ d’Almain enquired, brows
raised in surprise and admiration.

‘Not that we are aware of,’ John conceded. ‘There may be
other members of the gang who were not in the woods that
night. No doubt we will learn more in time.’

‘Have they confessed to the murder of Mr Cole?’ Lydia
could not forbear to ask, since it was the principal cause of
this campaign, however little the others might be aware of
it.

‘No,’ John answered curtly. ‘Three of the men did, indeed,
confess to the murder two years ago.’

‘Who was the victim?’

‘Apparently, one of their own.’ John rubbed his chin,
looking around at them all. ‘He had been found taking
rather more of his share than was customary. It was an act
of revenge.’

‘But they deny any knowledge of this latest crime?’
d’Almain queried, frowning.

‘Exactly so.’

‘They must be lying!’ Camilla exclaimed, unable to
consider any other possibility.

‘What motive can there be for lying?’ d’Almain asked
reasonably. ‘They will hang for one murder just as easily as
for two.’

‘Then we are back where we started!’ Lydia cried, exas
perated and perplexed.

‘Pardon?’
the Frenchman said in his native tongue.

‘Miss Bramwell,’ John explained, ‘was convinced that the
two crimes were connected, and that solving one would
lead inevitably to the solution of the other.’

‘It is certainly logical,’ d’Almain admitted.

‘But it appears to be false.’

‘But that means ...’ Aunt Camilla’s voice died away on a
note of acute distress.

‘It means,’ d’Almain said with a bow, ‘that the good
people of Diddlington are still free to believe that
I
am the murderer of Mr Cole, even if I am not responsible for the death of the other unknown fellow.’

The other three hardly knew what to say. This was
undoubtedly what they had all been thinking, but would
hardly have dared to voice aloud in his presence. It was almost a relief to hear him acknowledge the fact.

‘They are all fools!’ cried Camilla, at which point
d’Almain reached across to clasp her hand and bring it
ceremoniously to his lips.

‘I know that you,
mon ange,
would never believe some
thing so vile of me,’ he said huskily.

Once again the others were speechless. Such an overt
display of his partiality for Miss Denton was so very un-English, and not at all the thing. Lydia did not disapprove,
but she thought it rather excessive, and suspected that
John felt the same. Her aunt, meanwhile, was so overcome
by emotion that Lydia expected her to either swoon or
weep. However, she managed to exercise enough self-
control to choke out something quite unintelligible which
everyone simply accepted as her assent to the gentleman’s
statement.

‘As a matter of fact,’ John interrupted with a slight
cough, ‘I can tell you, in confidence, that the smugglers
were asked whether they were acquainted with you, sir.
They denied any knowledge of your existence.’

‘Then we may be easy on that head,’ Camilla said,
eager to grasp at this straw - which Lydia was quick to
break.

‘Since they also deny any involvement in Mr Cole’s
murder,’ she said, ‘their lack of knowledge does not imme
diately acquit Monsieur d’Almain.’

‘In the minds of many here, I am already guilty.’

This was unquestionably true, and it was on this unsettling
thought that their tea, which had begun so promisingly,
ended. The gentlemen took their leave, and the ladies took
to their beds: Camilla with an attack of nervous exhaustion
and Lydia with a mind already beginning to consider
possibilities. For she was determined that the Frenchman
should not be pilloried for something she had no doubt he
would scorn to do.

The outcome of Lydia’s reflections was one which was becoming most common: she determined to speak to John
about them. Before she could accomplish this ambition,
she was treated to further food for thought from an unex
pected source. Mrs Wardle-Penfield paid them a brief
visit, assuring them that she was merely ‘dropping in’ to
see how they were getting on. It soon transpired that she
was eager to learn about the visit of the two gentlemen,
which had become the latest
on dit
in this Lilliputian
society.

‘Of course,’ the
grande dame
pronounced smoothly,
‘Monsieur d’Almain has such polished manners, one might
almost mistake him for an aristocrat. No one can hope to
rival the French in such matters, after all.’

Lydia clenched her teeth together, refraining with difficulty from making a cutting remark at this obvious lure. It
was clearly impossible to sneeze in this village without
someone proclaiming that there was an epidemic of the
influenza.

‘We had a most enjoyable afternoon, did we not, Lydia?’
Aunt Camilla answered coolly. She was displaying more
backbone lately, Lydia thought. If that was the
Frenchman’s doing, he was already a hero in her eyes.

‘Most enlightening,’ Lydia agreed. ‘Mr Savidge told us all
about the capture of the smugglers.’

‘Indeed! I do not know what this town is coming to,’ Mrs
Wardle-Penfield bridled, preparing for an oration. ‘Such
goings-on have never been heard of here. Most of the men,
I believe, were from other villages nearby, and yet you may
be sure that they will all be clapped together and known
throughout the nation as “The Diddlington Gang”. Quite
shocking!’

‘It may be a real boon,’ Lydia said brightly. There will
doubtless be many a visitor at the Golden Cockerel, who is
there for no other reason than to see the spot where the
Diddlington Gang was apprehended.’

‘We hardly want that class of visitor here.’ The older
woman looked as if the very idea made her ill. ‘The leaders,
no doubt, will be hanged, and the rest will end their days
in Australia - a dreadful, wild place unfit for human habi
tation, by what I hear.’

‘I do not know,’ Aunt Camilla was inclined to think other
wise. ‘I have always thought Australia a terribly romantic
place: wild, perhaps, but no more so than America.’

‘America!’ Mrs Wardle-Penfield spoke the name as if it
were hell itself. ‘Another land fit only for felons and vile
religious sects.’

‘I own I should love to visit America,’ Lydia said. Then, with her usual practicality, she added, ‘Australia, I confess,
is too distant. I fear the journey would be excessively
tedious.’

By now they had strayed a considerable distance from
their original topic, but the older woman was determined to
direct the conversation back to where they began.

‘Well, I am sure we owe the capture of these criminals to
the efforts of Master John.’

‘He is monstrous brave, is he not?’ Camilla agreed,
expressing genuine admiration. Lydia wondered if she
would have applauded the bravery of her niece, had she
known of the part she played.

‘At least we will not now have to endure all this talk of
ghosts and goblins in Wickham Wood,’ Mrs Wardle-Penfield
said with some satisfaction. ‘I believe that they found
several white sheets, along with various accoutrements for
simulating spiritual phenomena.’

‘You, of course, were never fooled by such cheap theatri
cals,’ Lydia praised her, acknowledging her genuine good
sense and giving credit where it was undoubtedly due.

‘I should think not!’ Their guest appeared affronted at
the very notion. ‘I place no more store in the supernatural than I do in Sir Hector’s treasure.’

‘Sir Hector’s treasure?’ Lydia could not allow this inter
esting reference to pass by unquestioned.

‘Utter nonsense!’ Aunt Camilla admitted, shaking her
head and sharing a smile with her old acquaintance. ‘More village tales, my dear niece.’

‘Is there treasure hidden at Bellefleur?’ Lydia asked, her
pulse beginning to quicken in spite of herself.

‘So it has been rumored these twenty years or more,’
Mrs Wardle-Penfield concurred. ‘But nobody takes such
things seriously.’

‘Perhaps they should,’ Lydia answered, as much to
herself as to the other two. ‘Yes, perhaps they should.’

* * * *

It was another two days before Lydia was able to see John.
Aunt Camilla was feeling poorly, which was not an unusual
occurrence, especially when she was fretting herself so
dreadfully concerning Monsieur d’Almain. She was deter
mined to rouse herself from her bed to fetch a headache powder from the local apothecary, but Lydia very kindly
offered to go in her stead. After all, she said reasonably, the
exercise would be most beneficial to her, and the poor maid
was behind hand with the housework as it was.

What could be more reasonable? And, more importantly,
what could be so convenient for her own plans? At last she
might contrive to speak with John!

Off Lydia went, her steps light and quick. She first
patronized the apothecary, concluding her business rapidly
and setting out thence in the direction of the inn. She
briefly acknowledged the greetings of her fellow pedes
trians who were now all well acquainted with her.
However, she did not linger to chatter but hurried on her
way with a wave and a smile.

Preparing to enter the inn, she was almost knocked
down by a lady in a morning-dress of cherry-red and a matching hat trimmed with deep purple plumage. She was
very obviously one of the lightskirts kept by wealthy
gentlemen who frequented the area, and it was equally
plain that she considered herself superior to persons who had no such lucrative connections. Lydia made a mental
note to ask John who the woman’s protector might be. Her
aunt would be horrified by the very idea, but she knew
John would not mind.

As fate would have it, John was assisting his father that
day with the inn’s accounts. Mr Thomas Savidge was
dealing with some work in the stables and John was clos
eted alone in the small office at the side of the building. He was plainly curious when Miss Bramwell was presented at
his door, but not unhappy to see her.

‘Can you spare a few minutes, sir?’ she asked, very
formally for the sake of the waiting manservant.

‘Certainly, Miss Bramwell.’ John was equally polite,
motioning her to take a seat on the other side of the desk.
‘Please do come in.’

‘I suppose,’ she said in a low voice as the servant
retreated back to the entrance hall, ‘it would not do for us
to shut the door?’