Page 35 of A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (The Lord Julian Mysteries #10)
“I travel that way frequently,” Strother retorted. “I’ve never met anybody on that path, save for Lord Julian.” He turned a curious gaze upon me.
Tiresome and predictable. “By your own admission,” I said, “you travel the same route at the same time of day in a well-known rotation. Either meeting you or avoiding you is thus a very simple matter. I chose the former. The kidnappers have apparently chosen the latter.”
“Nevertheless,” Strother began, only to fall silent when the captain held up a hand.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Lord Julian has no lack of coin and no untoward interest in your sister. More to the point, he is the only party who has done anything to find Hannah.”
“I searched the entire house, and without alerting Mama to my efforts.”
Carstairs sent him a pitying look. “You were looking for the gold. You’ve doubtless been searching for that treasure since you were twelve years old.”
“I don’t think Han had hid it by then. Though she might have. She’s always been headstrong. Gets that from Mama, ironically.”
“Hamden Parva,” I said a bit too forcefully. “What do we know of it? Where in that vicinity might kidnappers keep a young lady without being detected by the neighbors?”
Carstairs propped his hips against the windowsill.
“For obscurity, it’s a good choice. The village used to lie in a royal forest, and thus the surrounds weren’t put under cultivation until fairly recently, by local standards.
The land doesn’t lend itself to farming as well as other parts of the shire, and the tenancies and homesteads are spaced well apart. ”
Another little world, and only three miles distant.
“Hamden Magna doesn’t exist,” Strother observed, though nobody had raised the question. “Nobody knows quite where it might have been, assuming it ever existed.”
“We have hours of light left,” Dutch said as if Strother hadn’t spoken. “Shall we have a stroll down the bridle path, my lord?”
“Is there any sort of butcher’s shop or abattoir in Hamden Parva?” I asked.
Every pair of eyes in the room turned in my direction.
“There is,” Carstairs said. “A royal forest was preserved for hunting, in the usual course, and hunting meant game to be dressed and butchered. The Dolans have been butchers from time out of mind. They still trade in game, for those with a license to hunt, and all the farmers rely on them to assist with local livestock.”
“We send them our deer,” Strother said, another irrelevancy. “They accept payment in kind rather than coin.”
Meaning they took the best cuts, the valuable hide, the bones, and any antlers, and sent the rest back to Pleasant View for consumption.
“Hannah knows the Dolans,” Strother went on. “Everybody does in these surrounds, at least in passing. They would not be a party to her kidnapping.”
Hardly the point, but I did not feel the need to explain myself.
“We’re off to Hamden Parva. Carstairs and I will ride by the lanes.
Captain, you will inform the ladies of recent developments when they return to the inn.
Dutch and Dorset, you go by the bridle path.
Dutch, you know which tracks to look for, though the recent rain won’t make the job easy. ”
We gathered up flasks and buttered bread, and Carstairs and I retreated to the stable yard.
“We’re still looking for a needle in a haystack,” Carstairs said as he tightened the girth on his saddle.
“Some parts of Merry Olde are less domesticated than others, and Hamden Parva is one of them. The land isn’t good enough to support much agriculture, and as far as I know, a great deal of it is still held in common. ”
“All of which suggests an ideal situation for kidnappers looking to lie low.” I swung into the saddle of the captain’s personal mount, knowing Atlas needed his day of rest. Smooth gaits were among his many fine qualities, and his saddle was exquisitely contoured, by design and long usage, to keep both me and my steed comfortable.
“Strother is a precious idiot,” Carstairs observed when we’d mounted up and gained the lane. “Or he appears to be.”
“He’s shrewd enough to dodge his creditors, but foolish enough to live beyond his means. How does that make him different from every other heir to an impoverished title?”
“You’ve been over every inch of Pleasant View,” Carstairs said. “What did you think of it?”
“Not every inch.” But I’d certainly inspected the grounds of the manor itself. “The property presents well. The deer are fat, the buildings in good repair, the home wood thriving, the kitchen gardens well maintained. Fences, fixtures, and home farm all appear to be regularly seen to as well.”
I could have gone on. The bridges were sound—always important to a marching army—and none of the ground qualified as bog, which meant mosquitoes would not torment the troops and somebody had kept on top of drainage considerations.
Lanes and bridle paths were free of potholes and clear of obstructions, which mattered very much to the artillery.
Which left…? “Strother says the tenant cottages are in want of repairs.” Though I’d seen some of those cottages, and none was in shameful condition. “You’re saying Strother is a decent manager, for all he comes across as a fribble?”
“He patrols the perimeter conscientiously. The locals get on with him. He might not behave with great sense when in Town, but he’s holding Pleasant View together. That takes a certain dedication and savvy.”
And yet, I’d caught him easily in a lie. Several lies. “What regiment had the pleasure of your loyalty?”
“95 th Rifles, for my sins.” He nudged his horse in some unseen fashion, and the beast took off in a businesslike canter.
If there was one group of soldiers who saw more keenly than Wellington’s reconnaissance officers, it was the sharpshooters in the Rifles. I could not put my finger on what troubled me about Carstairs’s observations, but he’d given me food for thought.