Time's Fool (36 page)

“By God…!” breathed Rossiter.

“Put it down,” said a cold voice.

He froze, then jerked around.

He had never much cared for Sir Louis Derrydene. During the six years since last he had seen the baronet, the pasty cheeks seemed to have become even more inclined to sag, the small mouth looked paler and tighter, the tendency to corpulence was more pronounced. But the hand holding the horse pistol was steady as a rock, and there was no doubting that death shone from the hard dark eyes.

“Well, well,” drawled Rossiter. “So my father's trusted friend has crept from his hole.”

A faint flush lit the flabby cheeks, but Derrydene repeated softly, “Put … it … down.”

“Why? It will look so nice with”—he ventured a wild guess—“with six.”

And he had struck home! He saw Derrydene's white hand jerk, saw the small mouth fall open, the little eyes widen with shock, and knew it was now or never.

The half globe was still in his left hand and it was quite heavy. He hurled it straight at Derrydene's face and in the same instant flung himself to one side. His conviction that the baronet would not hesitate to shoot was verified. The pistol bloomed smoke and flame. The retort was deafening, but Rossiter had moved very fast, and the ball hummed past him. Teeth bared with rage, Derrydene sprang, flailing the pistol at his head. Rossiter ducked, evading the blow. Derrydene snatched for the jewelled figure. He was bigger and heavier than Rossiter, and surprisingly strong. Reluctant to hit an older man, Rossiter panted, “Let go! I don't want to—hurt you.”

Derrydene's response was to again smash the pistol at his face. He jerked his head aside, and the weapon grazed his temple. Locked in a desperate struggle, they reeled about the room, sending chairs and small tables flying. Rossiter knew that time was running out; the shot had certainly been heard. At any instant Derrydene's people would be in here. He tore free and retreated. The baronet charged him. He swayed aside and gave a helping hand. At speed, Derrydene encountered the wall, and went down heavily.

Feet were pounding along the hall. Rossiter scooped up the little blue figure, and raced for the window.

“You're … dead,” choked Derrydene, gobbling with frustrated fury. “You damnable … interfering fool. You're a … dead man!”

Rossiter called, “Can't stop to chat. Sorry,” and was over the sill and sprinting across the back lawn.

Someone howled, “Stop, or I'll shoot!”

“Not today,” muttered Rossiter, and zigzagged. Two shots thundered out. He felt a tug at his right elbow, then the wall was before him. He cleared it with astonishing ease and not so much as a pang from his many bruises.

*   *   *

The clock on the dingy wall of this dingy room emitted a staccato rattling sound, then chimed once, a second chime being added after several intervening seconds, as if in afterthought. Glaring at it, Gideon stamped back to the bench where Naomi waited.

“Two o'clock!” he growled. “We have been here nigh on two hours! Derrydene has likely already been in touch with his solicitor and fabricated some cock-and-bull story to conflummerate the authorities. Such as they are!”

“If he is not on his way back to Moscow,” said Naomi.

He swore under his breath. “I vow that clerk was very well to live. He reeked of ale! I wonder if he even sought the magistrate, or is fallen asleep t'other side of that door.”

He began to pace up and down again. Naomi watched him lovingly. When she'd heard the first shot she had thought for one ghastly moment that he must have been slain. Lady Derrydene had run, screaming, down the hall, and she had followed, dreading what they might find. As they'd passed the dining room, two more shots had rung out, and she'd caught a glimpse of Gideon soaring over the wall with an easy grace that had set her fears at rest. She had stayed long enough to determine that although he was practically apoplectic with rage, Derrydene was relatively unharmed. Then, she had quietly slipped away, sending a lackey to call up her carriage. Gideon had joined them at the next corner, and rode beside the carriage to Bow Street.

A watchman had guided them to this unfortunate chamber. He had listened, goggle eyed, to Gideon's terse demands that constables be at once sent to apprehend Sir Louis Derrydene. Muttering that he must “fetch someone in authority” he had gone away, to reappear with a clerk. The clerk had explained that the magistrate was busied with another case, and that it would be necessary to first take down “the particulars.” Not all Gideon's rageful insistence on the necessity for speedy action had moved this stolid minion of the law, and he had laboriously written out his report, then gone in search of the magistrate.

Disregarding the constable who sat by the outer door, Gideon strode to the inner door and pounded on it angrily. “Hey!” he shouted. “Have you all expired in there?”

“Now then, sir,” protested the constable, running over, much shocked. “You cannot be a'doing of that in here! I speck as his honour's at his luncheon and you'll just have to wait.”

“I
have
been waiting! Two confounded hours! And the lady—” Gideon returned to sit on the bench beside Naomi and take her hand. “My poor love,” he exclaimed contritely. “You must be starving hungry! I'll call up your carriage and have you taken home. This idiotic magistrate will probably—”

“Do you refer to me, Captain Rossiter?”

The dry voice came from a stringy little man with a grey face and a grey and greasy wig, who had taken a seat behind a battered desk against the rear wall, and was surveying them through a dirty quizzing glass.

Gideon sprang to his feet and hurried to the desk. “Sir, I presume that you have read my statement and seen the evidence I handed your clerk. There has already been much time lost, and you must make haste, else this scheming rascal will—”

“I have here,” interrupted the magistrate, turning his quizzing glass on the various items before him and peering at them near-sightedly, “one letter; exceeding brief and of little significance. One engagement book containing entries of no interest. And what appears to be a child's toy. I find it little short of incredible that on the strength—or perhaps I should say the weakness—of these objects, you expect me to take seriously the allegations you have made 'gainst a respectable and titled gentleman.”

“Good God, man!” burst out Rossiter. “Did you not read my statement? It took that block of a clerk the better part of half an hour to—”

“Now then, sir,” intervened the constable, again coming forward and looking shocked. “You mustn't talk to the magistrate like that there. You must call him ‘your honour' and you must be respeckful when—”

“Respectful! Why you dimwit, don't you know that while we fripper about and do nothing, Derrydene is doubtless making haste out of the country?”

“Sir Louis Derrydene,” said the magistrate in his sour voice, “is a gentleman whose only misstep in an otherwise exemplary life appears to have been to become associated with Rossiter Bank.”

“
Associated,
do you say, sir,” roared Gideon. “That scoundrel damn near ruined my father with his trickery and—”

“And I will not allow slanderous statements of no foundation to be made in this court,” interrupted the magistrate shrilly. Jabbing his quizzing glass at Gideon, he leaned forward. “I have heard some cock-and-bull fustian in my time, Captain Rossiter. But this—this mishmash you have brought me is downright ridiculous! You have wasted my time, sir; you have treated this court with contempt; you have used unseemly language before not only the appointed representative of law and order, but”—the quizzing glass slid to the side, the little eyes glittered, and the wizened face contorted into a grimace that might have been a smile—“before this lovely lady.” He returned his gaze to the fuming Rossiter, and his smile became a scowl. “Disgraceful,” he said, and rapped his quizzing glass on the desk. “Fifty guineas.”

“Fifty guineas!”
exclaimed Rossiter. “What the deuce for? You have done nothing!”

“We will make it—
sixty
guineas,” snapped the magistrate. “And one more outburst will provoke me into indeed doing something, sir, for I shall have you clapped up, sir!”

Naomi hurried to Gideon's side and bent her most winning smile on the representative of law and order. “I do apologize for my affianced, your honour,” she murmured softly. “He is but now returned from the Low Countries, where he was seriously wounded and came near to dying. He is not quite himself as yet. In fact, I do suspect…” Ignoring Gideon's impatient growl, she leaned nearer and lowered her voice to a confidential whisper.

The nostrils of the representative of law and order caught the essence of
eau de jasmin;
the quizzing glass was brought to bear on the rich soft swell of my lady's snowy bosom, and the little beady eyes softened. “Poor fellow,” he murmured. “Poor fellow. I quite understand, my dear. You are to be commended for your loyalty. Take him away. As for you, sir,” the quizzing glass swung to Gideon's angry face. “You are greatly blessed, and do not deserve it. I shall lower your fine to twenty guineas, and warn you not to waste the time of this court in future!”

Seeing Gideon's expression, Naomi rested her hand on his arm. “Please pay his honour, my love. 'Tis time for you to go home and have your nap.”

Seething with frustrated fury, Gideon exchanged his evidence for twenty guineas, and retreated in disorder.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Never saw anything like it.” Viscount Horatio Glendenning sat at the table of the cheerful breakfast room in his father's house, and gazed curiously at the miniature in the palm of his hand. “It's a murky brew to be sure.” He looked up. “What d'you mean to do with the silly thing, Ross?”

Much restored by the delicious luncheon Lord Bowers-Malden's chef had prepared for them, Rossiter said, “Try to find some expert who can tell me something of the figures. I've a mind to take them to Oxford and see if anyone at the Bodleian knows aught of their history. What do you say, my lady?”

Naomi put down her coffee cup and admitted that she could not understand what the tiny figures had to do with Sir Mark Rossiter's troubles. “More to the point, dear Tio, is what will happen now. If Sir Louis Derrydene has Gideon arrested—”

Rossiter bent forward to place his long fingers over her hand and say with a reassuring grin that there was no cause to worry on that score. “'Twould draw attention to his crafty schemes, which is the last thing he wants.” He glanced at his friend. “I'm far more concerned with the probability that the bas—the rogue will slither out of the country.”

Naomi said soothingly, “Well, you have sent Tummet to watch his house, dear. He will let you know at once if there is any sign of that.”

“And if he does,” said Glendenning, “what shall you do?”

Rossiter scowled. “Everything in my power to prevent the treacherous cur escaping before he can be brought to book.”

“You may count on my help, dear boy. London's been downright boring of late. I'd enjoy a lively scrap for a change.”

“That's dashed good of you, Tio. I wonder, though—might your father help us, do you think? The backing of a man of influence would be invaluable, and he seems to have kept an open mind about the Rossiters. To an extent, at least.”

Glendenning gave him a rueful look. “Beastly luck, Ross, but Bowers-Malden is in Ireland. Went to have a look at a mare he's been particularly interested in. He left yesterday morning, and I don't expect him to return for at least three weeks.”

“Hell!” muttered Rossiter under his breath, and racking his brains, said, “Perhaps—Boudreaux…?”

Naomi said uneasily, “Surely Lord Boudreaux is out of favour, since his nephew was discovered to be a Jacobite sympathizer?”

Startled, Rossiter's gaze shot to Glendenning. “Not Trevelyan de Villars? Good Lord! Did they execute him?”

“Tried to, dear boy. But he managed to get to France and I hear is now most happily married and soon to blessed by
un petit pacquet.
Still, your lady is quite correct, his uncle's help, even were it given, might prove more an embarrassment than a blessing.”

Rossiter's heart sank. Gordon Chandler's sire would stand by them, he knew, but Sir Brian Chandler's health was not good, and he seldom stirred far from his great estate near Dover. ‘Whatever is to be done,' he thought, ‘I must do it.' And he must do it fast, because Jamie had likely arrived by this time. He glanced at the clock uneasily. “I wish Gwendolyn and your sister would come home. How long have they been out shopping?”

“Oh, hours,” said Glendenning breezily. “When they have chattered their way through the bazaars and milliners, I believe they mean to visit every bookshop on London Bridge, and will likely not leave until the last one is closed. Matter of fact, Marguerite has invited Gwen to stay for a few days. Have we your permission, Ross, to keep your pretty sister with us?”

“Lord, yes!” Relieved for several reasons, Gideon said, “Gwen will be in alt! Thank you, Tio. You're—er, sure Lady Bowers-Malden will not object?”

His lordship declared that his mama was exceeding fond of Gwendolyn, and would be delighted. Then, with a conspiratorial wink he excused himself to go and call up the carriage.

Thus left most improperly alone with his lady, Rossiter lost no time in taking her into his arms. Naomi was worried, and clung to him, anxious to know when and where they would meet again. He told her that he'd promised to ride with his father the following morning, and would be unable to meet her in the park. She accepted this falsehood without question, and they then devised a plan whereby either Tummet or Maggie would relay messages. Such hole-and-corner tactics were abhorrent to them both, but Gideon promised that the need for secrecy would soon be over. Despite the total inefficiency of the authorities, he was convinced his evidence would influence the lord chancellor's committee. Once his father's good name was restored, it should, he said cheerfully, be a simple matter to clear the way so that he could marry the lady he loved so deeply.