Page 72 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #3)

‘You going out, Mr Hook?’ Rose always pronounced the honorific like an insult.

‘Mind your own business.’

‘Just a civil question. No need to get narky.’

‘I’m butler in this house,’ Hook said, with a look like black frost. ‘The day I have to explain myself to the likes of you . . . Get back to your work!’

She turned away without a word. She found Afton in the valets’ room, sitting at the table polishing the silver pieces from his lordship’s dressing-table.

Silver-backed hairbrush, hand mirror, and two clothes brushes.

Stud bowl, bud vase, pomade pot, pen-holder.

Large and small trays. She knew them all from the days when she dusted the room.

All but the hairbrushes had been his old lordship’s before.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ she commented from the doorway. ‘It’s not a valet’s job.’

‘I like cleaning silver,’ he said pleasantly. ‘It’s peaceful. Promotes thought.’

She leaned against the door jamb, folding her arms. ‘What do you think about?’

‘You’d be surprised. All sorts of things. Don’t you think?’

‘I think there’s something going on between you and Hook,’ she said conversationally. ‘And since he’s a nasty piece of work, and you seem like a nice sort, I’m guessing you suspect him of something.’

He looked at her cautiously, not knowing how far she could be trusted.

She seemed to see it in his eyes, because she snorted, drew herself upright, and said, ‘It’s no skin off my custard.

I mind my own business. But I don’t like strife below stairs – everybody suffers.

And he’s just gone out somewhere, in a right snotty mood.

At a time he shouldn’t be going anywhere, with upstairs lunch nearly due. ’

Afton jumped to his feet. ‘Did he say where?’

‘Not to me he didn’t. I ’m lower than dirt. You can catch him up if you hurry.’

‘I don’t want to catch him up.’

‘But you do want to know where he’s going,’ Rose said, with a twisted smile. ‘Don’t tell me – I don’t want to know. And I never told you anything.’

‘Of course not,’ Afton said, and was gone.

Hook had gone the back way towards the village, down Mop End – Afton saw him just disappearing behind the hawthorns that lined the path.

There was no way to follow him on the same path without being seen.

He would have to take a chance that the village was his destination, and go down the main drive.

If he ran most of the way, he could get to the high street first and wait for him to appear from the footpath to Cherry Lane.

There were always people around in the high street, and it would be easier there to follow covertly.

A valet’s life did not include a great deal of running, but he was lean and wiry in build and had always walked a lot, so he was fitter than might have been expected.

All the same, he was red-faced and sweating when he reached the bottom of the hill.

He crossed the bridge and turned into the high street, not running now – it would have attracted attention – but walking fast. When he came in sight of the stile to the footpath, he took up position behind a large elder-bush, and pretended to inspect his nails.

No-one looked at him more than casually, and he had time to cool down.

Too much time? Had Hook got there before him?

Was he long gone? Time seemed to drag, and he felt like a fool.

If he’d missed him . . . And what if he had a perfectly normal reason for going out?

Or what if Rose was in league with Hook and had sent Afton on a wild-goose chase while Hook got up to mischief elsewhere?

But, no, there he was at last, the tall, thin figure unmistakable with its curiously jerky gait.

Afton drew back entirely behind the bush and watched as Hook sprang nimbly over the stile, crossed the road, and headed up Church Lane towards New Ashmore.

Afton’s heart lifted, and he followed, letting Hook stay well ahead – his height made him easy to keep in sight.

He was ready to jump into hiding somehow if Hook looked back, but he never turned, strutting rapidly up the hill .

. . the hill he had said led to nothing worth climbing for.

Afton followed. He was relieved when his quarry turned in the opposite direction to the railway station, and elated when he stopped at Pogrebin’s, pushed open the door and went in.

Pogrebin was not pleased to see him. His jetty brows drew down alarmingly. ‘I don’t want you in here,’ he snarled at Hook. ‘You’re trouble.’

‘ I ’m trouble?’ Hook said in outrage. ‘What’ve you been telling folk about me? I thought you were supposed to be discreet, Mr P. Now I’ve got people looking at me funny and asking questions.’

‘You’ve been flapping your mouth off,’ Pogrebin said. ‘I shoulda known better than deal with a amateur like you. I had a feller in here asking about that stamp album, said you wanted to buy it back.’

‘Buy it back? Course I don’t!’

‘How’d he know about it in the first place, eh? Tell me that, Mr Blabbermouth!’

‘What did he look like, this feller?’

‘Little feller, spry, like a squirrel cleaning its whiskers. Copper’s nark for all I know. Said he was a friend of yours.’

‘I haven’t got any friends.’

‘You led him right to me. I want you out of here, before you bring the peelers down on me.’

‘That silver I brought you—’

‘Gone. D’ye think I keep stuff like that hanging around?’

‘All right, then. But I got something else for you.’ He brought out from under his coat a silver charger, one from the set. They were rarely used, and who would ever count them?

Pogrebin raised his hands in a fending-off movement. ‘I don’t want to know! Get out of here – and take that with you! You’re bad news. You’re trouble. Get out and don’t come back!’

‘But I need the money. I might have to clear—’

‘Rube!’ Pogrebin bellowed. The curtain to the back room parted and there emerged a figure with a marked family resemblance to Pogrebin, especially in the hair and beard department, but twice his size.

He was broad enough to block out the light from the back room.

There was an awful stillness about him. His fists hung down by his sides, like dented tin cans.

Pogrebin addressed him without turning his head.

‘See this feller here? We don’t like him, Rube.

He’s not nice. If you see him anywhere near this place again, you can smash him up, hard as you like. ’

The monster spoke, in a boulderish rumble. ‘Right, Dad.’

Pogrebin addressed Hook. ‘Now get out. And if there’s any more visits from suspicious fellers, if you’ve led the peelers to me, Rube here will come and find you, and kill you.’

Rube took a step forward, a gesture of menace, and Hook turned hastily and left.

Outside he began to retrace his steps, his heart racing.

He didn’t doubt Pogrebin meant what he said.

What he was unsure of was whether he’d decide not to depend on Hook’s silence and send Rube anyway.

Better safe than sorry, so the sinister uncle might think.

That blasted stamp album! Why’d he ever bothered with it?

Take things that won’t be missed, that was the rule.

‘I got to clear,’ he said to the air. It was time.

He was sick of the place anyway. He had a decent bit put aside.

He’d have liked more – he could have got more – but a wise man knew when the game was up.

What with his lordship snooping over the plate-room book – and who put him up to that, eh?

And Afton asking him twisted questions and Rose giving him looks .

. . He hated them all, despised them, bloody fools and parasites that they were!

And stopping out here in cow-country was a mug’s game, when he could be living it up in a town somewhere.

Paris, maybe – they said living was cheap there, and it’d seemed like a jolly place when he’d gone there with his lordship.

It couldn’t be too hard to learn the old polly-voo.

After all, little kids spoke it in France. He’d—

‘Hullo! What a coincidence, meeting you here!’

Hook jerked out of his churning thoughts as someone stepped out from a doorway in front of him.

He was walking so fast, he slammed into the man who, though shorter than him, was solidly built.

The impact jerked loose the silver charger, held under his coat against his side by the pressure of his arm, and it clattered to the pavement.

Afton – it was bloody Afton! – stooped and picked it up.

‘Well, well, what have we here? Didn’t I just see you come out of Pogrebin’s?

Don’t say he’s started selling fine silver.

Bought this as a present for your old mum, have you? ’

‘Get out of my way, you snivelling runt!’ Hook snarled.

Afton placed a surprisingly strong hand on his forearm. ‘I think you’ve got some explaining to do,’ he said gravely.

‘Not to you, dog face!’

‘No, to his lordship. And then probably to the police.’

‘Take your hands off me!’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Afton. And was surprised by the speed with which Hook’s fist came flying at him. It caught him – by luck, because it was a wild swing if ever he saw one – on the point of the chin, snapped his head back and knocked him over.

As he hit the pavement and heard Hook take to his heels, he thought, The idiot!

There’s nowhere to run . He yelled, ‘Stop thief!’ as loudly as he could.

He scrambled to his feet, his face aching from the blow, and saw Hook running towards the railway station.

Heads were turning, and two men and a couple of boys took off after him.

The cry was taken up, ‘ Stop thief! ’

‘Nab him!’

‘Trip him up!’