Paul fumbled in his pocket. ‘I came upon a mystery the other day. Travellers leave all sorts of things in coaches – gloves, canes, parasols, mittens, shoes, purses, reticules, newspapers, books, monthly magazines. As often as not they come back for them or send a servant. But they scarcely ever return for newspapers or magazines. Last month I was going through these – in time you get a pile and you can sell ’em for a few pence; people down here don’t mind their being out of date. Well, I was going through these, and one was The Morning Post for Monday, 23rd November.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Stephen. ‘Newspaper?’
‘Yes. A London daily newspaper.’
Stephen grunted and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘So.’
‘So it had a news item in it. Thought it might entertain you both, considering some of the wildcat discussions we’ve had together.’
He brought out a wrinkled quarter-page of a newspaper, unfolded it. He studied it himself for a few moments, smoothing it with his hand, glanced at the others, hesitating whether to read it aloud, then pushed it towards them, between the beer tankards. They put their heads together and read it at the same time.
It was headed: ‘Startling Robbery.’
It has been the custom for several years for Messrs Coutts Bank to despatch money to their branch in Brighton by ‘The Blue Belle’, a coach run by the well-known and long established carriers, Bouverie, Cartwright & Baynes, who have their head offices in St Mary-le-bone. ‘The Blue Belle’ leaves the Star & Garter Hotel in Pall Mall each weekday at nine a.m.
On Monday last the 16th inst. the coach left as usual, with the cash-boxes in the padlocked compartment beneath the coachman’s seat. All six seats inside the coach were booked. Of these only two, a Mr and Mrs Pressby, arrived to take their seats at the point of departure. At Streatham a Mr Coningsby and a Mr Browne joined the coach as arranged, but the remaining two inside passengers failed to put in an appearance. When the coach stopped at the posting inn in Sutton Mrs Pressby was of a sudden taken ill and could proceed no farther. She and her husband were given accommodation at the inn and an apothecary summoned. The coach then proceeded on its way with eight outside passengers and two inside.
At Reigate, however, the two inside gentlemen alighted from the coach to rendezvous with a friend whom they had arranged to meet there. At the inn they discovered they had missed him, and, instead of accompanying them to Brighton, as planned, he had boarded a coach for London. Seeing no point in therefore continuing to Brighton, they remained behind at Reigate and resolved to wait for the next coach to take them home.
On arrival at the Old Ship in Brighton, after the passengers had alighted, the coachman’s seat was unpadlocked in the presence of the Bank’s messengers, whereupon both bank boxes were found to have been broken open and the cash extracted.
An attempt is being made to trace all the passengers who travelled on the coach that day. £300 reward is offered for the recovery of the notes and/or the arrest of the miscreants. The value of the cash stolen is between £3,000 and £4,000. Similar notes are being withdrawn and changed.
There was a long pause. Stephen eventually shoved the newspaper across the table at Paul.
‘There’s a Chinese puzzle for you.’
‘My own feelings exact,’ said Paul. ‘But Chinese puzzles are meant to be solved. What do you think, Jeremy?’
Jeremy shook his head.
Paul said: ‘I conjected it might appeal to you both.’
‘Appeal!’
Emma came in. ‘All dry, are ee? There now. Sorry. I been busy in the taproom.’ She swept up their tankards with a clatter and went out.
Paul smoothed his sleek hair. ‘I won’t deny I have given the matter some thought since I read the piece. Money like that would not come amiss to any of us. I only wish I had the magic secret.’
‘We talked of all this once before,’ Stephen said brusquely. ‘In May. It got us nowhere. Nor will it now.’
‘Things have changed a little since May,’ said Jeremy.
‘Oh yes. Oh yes. For me? For you? For us. Maybe for all of us. But it don’t – this newspaper story is a fairy tale – it don’t offer us any help.’
‘Oh, I agree,’ said Paul. ‘All the same I’d dearly like to know how it was done. I’ve thought. It must have been those early passengers – somehow.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, could you imagine a lamer excuse than those two men – what was it? – Coningsby and Browne. They had arranged to meet someone at Reigate – wherever that may be: he isn’t there, so they return to London, even though they were originally booked for Brighton. It’s a palpable lie, the feeblest excuse.’
‘And the padlocked seat, with the coachmen seated upon it. There’s always two of them. How did they manage that? You see it says . . .’
Emma came back, glanced at their preoccupied faces. ‘I can see how you all want to talk to me. Never mind. I’ll go flirt with the sumpmen again.’ She put the ale down and left.
Stephen said: ‘You see it says the bank boxes were broken open. Not stolen. Broken open. How could that be?’
‘The coachmen were either in it, or blind drunk,’ said Paul. ‘I’ve told you before, I know these men. They take a tot at every stage; by the time they’re half home they almost leave it to the horses to find their own way.’
‘It couldn’t be that,’ said Stephen. ‘It’s not just drink. Otherwise the seat padlock would’ve been forced too. You can see that. Now supposing the two coachmen go in for a drink and someone – inside or outside – climbs up with a crowbar, wrenches open the seat, wrenches open the boxes, grabs the cash, smooths over the damage to the padlock, puts the money in their own valises, and slips away.’
‘The coach’, said Jeremy patiently, ‘is only left in the yard for a few minutes anywhere, and people are always bustling about. I doubt if it is left unobserved for sixty seconds. What would you say, Paul? You ought to know.’
‘Well, you’re right about the length of time a coach is left unattended. Once it leaves its starting-point . . . And it was daylight.’
‘And the seat padlock was not forced.’
Stephen put his little finger into the gap of his broken eye-tooth, picked it abstractedly. ‘One at least of the coachmen was in it. Must have been. Slipped his accomplice the key while he went for his drink.’
‘Someone still had to break open the cash-boxes,’ said Jeremy. ‘In front of every one.’
One of the candles was guttering, sending up wispy smoke and making little shadows jump and dart. Even though it was the fag end of the year, a few moths were fluttering against the window-panes.
‘Well,’ said Paul, ‘you’ve helped me to think a small amount more clearly. If, as I think, the coachmen were in it, then they had an arrangement with the two men, so that when they stopped at Reigate the keys should be slipped to the men. In order to make it seem like an outside theft, the bank boxes were forced.’
‘If they’d wanted to do that, why was the seat-padlock not forced too, eh? That would have been much more conclusive, like, that the coachmen were not involved.’
They all took a drink.
‘But how,’ said Jeremy, ‘could they count on the lady being taken ill at Sutton?’
‘Well, it means they were all in it – all the original passengers.’
‘Or none of ’em,’ said Stephen.
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘The coachmen could’ve just arranged it betwixt themselves. Surely. Easy as easy. They stop at one of the main posting-houses. All the passengers get out. One of the coachmen goes in for a drink. The other does the job.’
‘While the horses are being changed?’
‘Well, in between. They could count a minute here and there. Twould add up in the end.’
‘And what do they do with the money?’
‘Pass it to some accomplice waiting at the next stage. I reckon that’s why they broke open the bank boxes instead of stealing ?
??em. Much easier to carry.’
Paul folded the cutting from the newspaper again and again, as if trying to eradicate the questions in his mind.
Jeremy said: ‘But weren’t those boxes padlocked too? Weren’t those padlocked you saw in Plymouth, Paul?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘How long do you suppose it would take, then, to break those boxes open, after the seat-padlock had been opened with a key? How long would it take? More, surely, far more than the three or four minutes you might expect at the most when a coach is stopped and the horses are being changed. It would not be possible.’
Stephen took a very long drink. ‘God’s eyes, what do it matter? You – you read a fairy story in a London news sheet, Paul, and you bring it to show us, and then we rack our wits like apprentices with a brain-twister their master has give ’em. We know we can never solve it nor answer it. We don’t even know if the question be right all ways, because something may have been put in or left out. But whatever, twill do us no manner of good to rack our wits to answer it; for if we did answer it we should never have it just the same way as it was in the first place in London – the facts would never, never be the same – and so it is a sheer waste of time and energy thinking about it at all! Forget it! Let’s think about what we can do down here – not what they did, or are supposed to have done, on the Brighton coach!’
Jeremy was staring at the smeeching candle, eyes blind with preoccupation. There was a roar of laughter from the taproom. Emma was entertaining the sumpmen.
Paul said: ‘Two months from now my father will be in prison, my mother and Daisy turned out of doors. Then I’ll have to find work to keep them somehow. I’m not trained, you know, not the way I should be, not in law or accountantship, nor even in office work, save what I’ve picked up in day to day business. It is not a pretty prospect . . .’ He got up and kicked at the fire to make it blaze. ‘All the same, I shall not risk my neck holding up a coach at pistol-point behind a black mask or a kerchief. I don’t have the stomach for that sort of violence, nor the nerve to carry it through. Maybe you do, Miller, being bred to piracy.’
‘I’ve never been a pirate,’ said Stephen, ‘nor ever intend to be – as you well know. A privateer, you little runt, is all the difference in the world, as I’ve also explained to you before. You get letters of marque. You’re operating legally in times of war. You fight the enemy, but for private profit. That’s why I’m anxious to get to sea again afore the war is over.’ He banged on the table for Emma. ‘Nay, I have no fancy for the black mask – little more than you, Paul – though I’m willing to stand me chance and fight me way out of most things. I carry scars enough to show it! But other folk carry more.’
‘Like that sailor in the press gang,’ said Paul.
‘Aye. Like him.’
‘And Ben Carter?’
‘We’ll leave that be,’ said Stephen. ‘Just for the time being. If you please.’
Paul came back but did not sit down. ‘All the same . . .’
‘What?’
‘I’d dearly love to know how that money disappeared from the Brighton coach. If it was easy – or clever – or none too risky – I’d take a chance on that.’
‘You can’t never know,’ said Stephen. ‘It’s a fairy story! Nobody’ll know how it happened.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Jeremy.
They both stared at him. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘These coaches here, Paul. Those that ply around Cornwall. Do they all have two coachmen?’
‘Yes. And some a guard as well. When there’s money aboard there’s usually a guard.’
‘And passengers inside?’
‘Four, not six. We haven’t the turnpike roads to take the extra width.’
‘That’s the sort of coach that runs from Plymouth? The sort you travelled in after your fight with the press gang?’
‘Yes. They’re all very much the same as to size. Two coachmen, four horses, maybe a guard, four passengers in, eight to ten out.’
‘I see.’
They waited. Stephen said: ‘What d’you mean, you’re not so sure. Sure of what?’
‘Sure I don’t know how it happened.’
‘Get along!’
‘Well,’ said Jeremy, ‘of course I’m not sure. I can’t tell you how it did happen, of course, no one can. No one probably ever will. But I think I can tell you how it could happen. I think I’ve got a pretty good notion how it could be worked.’
Chapter Six
Relations between Sir George and his son were strained all through that far too long Christmas vacation. Valentine was a gregarious young man who never really liked to be alone, and since Cardew was much larger than the houses in which most of his friends lived, he thought it easier to entertain than to be entertained.
So a day scarcely passed when some few other young men or women were not seated at his supper table eating his victuals and consuming his candles and coals until far into the night. Sometimes they danced to a local fiddler who lived near by at Perranarworthal, sometimes they played backgammon, sometimes noisier games. George would have found it all much more acceptable if these visitors had been the sons and daughters of the noble houses of central and western Cornwall; instead in the main they came of genteel but not particularly distinguished or moneyed stock on whom, as George saw it, he was conferring a favour rather than that a favour was being conferred.
Indeed after the disgraceful scenes that took place at Cardew on the night of The Miller’s Dance, when Valentine had scarred the top of one of his best tables with his boots, George would have put the house in quarantine for the rest of the holidays: the whole evening had been quite outrageous and should have been brought to an abrupt close before it got out of hand: unfortunately, more than ever this holiday, Valentine had found a firm ally in Harriet. They hunted together, and when it was too dark to see the foxes they brought home noisy and muddy young people who turned night into day. She also stood up for Valentine in private conversations with George and lent her stepson money when he ran short. It was all very frustrating. Nor was George altogether proof against a stab of jealousy from time to time.
It was his intention to tell Valentine of the plans he had made for his future; but the occasion just did not arise. Each of the last three nights before he left for Cambridge Valentine was out visiting – for a change – and returned very late. And although George’s character did not run to finesse, he was reluctant to call his son into his study and announce that plans had been drawn up for his future marriage rather in the same manner as if he were telling him of a change in his monthly allowance. The ideal time would be after dinner, preferably when Harriet was not there, over the port when a mellowing influence would be at work. Not that George supposed Valentine would need much mellowing to accept the idea; Cuby, as Major Trevanion had repeatedly pointed out, was a pretty girl, healthy, young, amenable, accomplished, and of one of the oldest and most distinguished county families. Their home would be in the only modern castle in Cornwall, surrounded by five hundred acres of garden and farm land sweeping down to the sea. George was more interested in joint stock companies and the discounting of bills, but even he had been impressed by his first sight of Caerhays. When the bluebells and the young beeches were out it was something conjured from a dream. No young man in his right senses would even hesitate.
It would cost more than the original agreement in the end, for the two young people would have to be subsidized in order to live. But George had ideas about that too. Thanks to the advice of Sir Christopher Hawkins and with the backing of his new banking associate Sir Humphrey Willyams, he was feeling his way into a relatively new industry which was extracting clay and china stone from the hillsides and out of the ground in the districts of St Dennis and Carloggas. In two or three years, if all went well, he would have gained control of one of the companies working there and would put Valentine in charge. By then Valentine would be living quite near, and it would depend upon his own energy and acu
men whether he could develop it into something suitable to his station. (A gradual withdrawal of the subsidies being paid out would be a useful spur to his industry; but of course he would not be told that yet.)
On the strength of their few conversations together, George had come to the conclusion that Cuby was a young woman of strong character, little like either of her brothers; and her influence, plus the accession of property and responsibility, might help to sober Valentine and enable him to become the sort of influence in the county he ought to be. In the meantime, therefore, George tried to overlook his present extravagances of behaviour and of purse, determined if possible to keep on modestly good terms with the lad, so that when the time came to announce his plans he could do so in friendly fashion, offering it as the generous reward of a loving father rather than as the coldly arranged dictates of convenience.
It occurred to him to discuss his plans with Harriet, but the thought never came to anything. In the old days he would certainly have told Elizabeth everything, but this marriage, though not as stormy, was not as close. George had been more unguarded with Elizabeth than with any other person in his life. Besides, Harriet’s reactions were predictably unpredictable. You could not begin to guess how her views would jump. And her growing alliance with Valentine made her judgements more than ever suspect. Once the announcement was about to be made, then she could be told.
George had not yet begun to make any plans for little Ursula, who had only just celebrated her thirteenth birthday, but once or twice, observing suitably titled or landed parents with sons of a suitable age, he could not prevent the occasional speculation. Ursula was really the apple of his eye, though sometimes he wished she were a prettier apple. If Valentine was as unlike the Warleggans as well could be, Ursula seemed to resemble them all. She had a strong, thick body, a slight stoop, big features and big hands. Her movements were rather slow, but her eyes, though small and round like polished walnuts, were very quick and penetrating. She had been greatly spoiled by her grandmother, who could deny her nothing, and not a little by her father who saw and admired in her his own blood in a way that circumstances had prevented him from ever doing with Valentine.