The Captain's Mysterious Lady. Mary Nichols

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       Chapter One

       Early spring 1750

      A breathless James arrived at the Blue Boar in Holborn just in time to see the stage disappearing out of sight. He stood and watched it go and swore roundly in several languages.

      ‘Dammit, Sam,’ he said at the end of this tirade. ‘The devils have slipped through our fingers again. They’re as slippery as eels, the pair of them.’

      ‘Yes, sir. Do you think they knew we were on to them?’

      ‘Couldn’t fail to, could they? We have been hounding them for two years. But they need not think this is the end of it, for I will not give up while there is breath in my body.’

      Captain the Honourable James Drymore turned from the sight of the back of the stage disappearing from the end of the road and went into the inn to enquire about its passengers. He did not expect to be given names; they would have meant little if he had. Those two, whose real names he had ascertained were Morgan Randle and Jeremy Smith, would have used aliases and probably disguises, too. If his informant had been right, they were finding his pursuit of them too close for comfort and had decided to leave London for the provinces. He did not know their destination, but he had learned, only that morning, that they had arranged to meet at the Blue Boar at nine in the morning with the intention of boarding a coach north. He had rushed home to pack a few clothes, put some money and his pistol into his pocket and, with Sam in tow as he always was, made all haste to the inn.

      ‘Two men travelling together,’ the proprietor repeated, when James finally persuaded him to stop rushing about issuing orders to his servants and speak to him. ‘Well, there were two, clerical men I should say. Dark clothes, bob wigs, shallow hats.’

      ‘And was one a spidershanks, without an ounce of fat on him, and the other a beefy fellow with a bulbous nose?’ James asked, mentioning attributes it would be hard to disguise, even if their clothes and wigs were changed.

      ‘You could so describe them, sir. What might I ask is your interest in them?’

      ‘I am empowered by the Bow Street magistrate to arrest them for theft and murder, so if you know anything of them you should tell me at once.’

      ‘I don’t ask the passengers for their histories when they board one of my coaches, sir. I’d never do any business that way.’

      ‘I understand that, but perhaps you could tell me their destination.’

      ‘They bought tickets to Peterborough. Where they were going from there I cannot tell.’

      ‘And when is the next coach going in that direction?’

      ‘To Peterborough? Not until tomorrow, but there’s one going to Lynn in half an hour. You could leave it at Downham Market and find your way to Peterborough from there.’

      ‘That will have to do.’

      He bought inside tickets for himself and Sam, his friend as well as his servant, and went into the inn’s parlour to wile away the thirty minutes they had to wait. There was a good fire in there and they sat warming their frozen toes on the fender and drinking mulled wine.

      James had every reason to want to see Randle and Smith brought to justice. The victim of the murder he had spoken of had been his own wife. Poor, innocent Caroline СКАЧАТЬ