The street was crowded with people going about their business, jostling each other in their hurry to reach their destinations: city men, gentlefolk, parsons, hawkers, women selling posies, piemen, street urchins. James hardly spared them a glance as he made his way on foot to the magistrate’s office, where he found him in conversation with Lord Trentham, a one-time admiral, whom he had known from his years of naval service.
‘Now, here’s your man,’ the magistrate said to his lordship, after greetings had been exchanged and a glass of brandy offered and accepted. ‘He can help solve your mystery.’
‘Oh, and what might that be?’ James asked guardedly, assuming they wanted to inveigle him into more thieftaking.
‘A man has gone missing and his lordship wants him found.’
‘Men are always going missing,’ he said. ‘I know of two myself I should dearly like to find.’
‘Still no luck?’ Henry queried.
‘Afraid not. I have been chasing them all over the country. What we need is a paid police force, one that investigates crime as well as arresting criminals, a body of men in uniform that everyone can recognise as upholders of law and order.’
‘I agree with you,’ the magistrate put in. ‘I am working on the idea and one day it will come about, but in the meantime I must put my faith in people like you.’
‘That has come about because of my determination to see Smith and Randle hang.’
‘Bring them before me, and they will,’ the magistrate told him. ‘In the meantime, will you oblige Lord Trentham?’
‘I assume the missing man is a criminal of one sort or another?’ James enquired.
‘We do not know that,’ his lordship put in. ‘Might be, might not. His wife’s family want him found.’
James laughed. ‘An absconding husband!’
‘We do not know that either.’
‘It is a mystery,’ Henry Fielding said. ‘And you are a master at solving riddles and can be trusted to be discreet.’
‘That is most kind of you,’ he said, bowing in response to the compliment. ‘But I am not at all sure I want to solve this particular riddle. Coming between husband and wife is not something I care to do.’
‘Let me tell you the story and then you can decide.’ Lord Trentham said.
‘Go on.’ He was availing himself of the magistrate’s best cognac and politeness decreed he should at least hear his lordship out.
‘The wife in question is the daughter of a very dear friend, Lady Sophie Charron—’
‘The opera singer?’
‘The same. Two months ago she was on a coach travelling to her relatives in Highbeck, in Norfolk, when the coach was held up by highpads, only for it to be overturned half an hour later. She has recovered from her injuries, but cannot remember anything leading up to the accident. Her memory is completely blank. And her husband has disappeared. The house where they lived is a shambles. We are of the opinion something happened.’
James had begun to listen more intently as the tale went on, realising they were talking about his mystery lady. He had often wondered what had become of her, had not been able to get her out of his mind, even after he had been to Peterborough and back. Her pale, frightened face haunted him. How could he be sure he had left her in good hands? Was this another occasion for guilt that he had done nothing to help her? Was his pursuit of Smith and Randle robbing him of his common humanity? He had toyed with the idea of calling to see how she fared, but Highbeck was remote and not connected with his own search and he could not be sure she was still there so he had put off doing so.
‘I met the lady,’ he said quietly. ‘I was travelling on the same coach.’
‘You were?’ Lord Trentham leaned forwards, his voice eager. ‘Then you know more than we do.’
‘Not about her husband I do not. I did not know she was married.’ He went on to tell them exactly what had happened and his impressions of the demeanour of the young lady. ‘She was at the inn being looked after by the innkeeper’s wife when I left. I was assured her relatives had been sent for and would take care of her, but I have often wondered if I was right to leave her.’
‘Oh, yes, her aunts, Lady Charron’s sisters, fetched her and she is staying with them at Blackfen Manor,’ his lordship explained. ‘But her husband has disappeared. They think if he could be found, her memory might be restored to her.’
‘What do you know of him?’ James asked.
‘His name is Duncan Macdonald.’
‘A Scotsman?’
‘I believe so, though he has lived many years in England. He is an artist, though not a very successful one. He also plays very deep and I believe the couple were in financial trouble. It might be why he has disappeared.’
‘A cowardly thing to do, to leave his wife to set off alone for her relatives, don’t you think?’ James remarked.
‘Yes, if that is what he did, but perhaps he had disappeared before she left. She might have been going to look for him,’ his lordship suggested.
‘She chose a singularly unattractive helpmate if that was the case. A surly individual in a rough coat and a scratch wig. She seemed terrified of him. Also, he was known to the robbers who held up our coach. And I believe she recognised them as well, although I may be mistaken in that,’ James said.
‘Oh dear, it is worse than I thought,’ said Lord Trentham. ‘Did you by chance learn the man’s name?’
‘Gus Billings, I think one of the highpads called him, but he died in the accident. Could he have been her husband under an assumed name?’
‘Unlikely. I only met Duncan Macdonald once when we attended the same opera and he and Amy came back stage to speak to Lady Charron, but he wore a bag wig and was dressed in a very fine coat of burgundy satin. He was charming enough, had exquisite manners, but there was something about him that made me wary. Amy was, is, a dear girl, certainly not a lady to consort with criminals.’
‘As you say, a mystery,’ James said, turning over in his mind what he had learned, which was little enough. At least he now knew the young lady’s name was Amy. He thought it suited her.
‘You will undertake to investigate, my dear fellow, won’t you?’ his lordship pleaded. ‘Her mother and her aunts are all anxious about her and I promised I would do what I could to help.’
‘Memory is a strange thing,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it shuts down simply to avoid a situation too painful to bear. One must be careful not to force it back. Mrs Macdonald might be happier not remembering.’
‘True, true,’ Lord Trentham said. ‘But if we could discover what is at the back of it without distressing her, then we might know how to proceed.’
James was torn between taking on the commission and continuing the search for his wife’s killers, but that had lasted so long and yielded so little reward he did not think it would make any difference if he set it aside for a week or two. He would do what he could to help, if only to make amends for not doing anything before. ‘If you would be so good as to furnish me with a letter of introduction to the lady’s aunts, I will go to Highbeck and see what I can discover,’ he said. It ought not to take him long and after that he must resume his search for Smith and Randle. He would not rest until they were caught.
Lord Trentham wrote the letter; once this was done and handed to him, James returned to Colbridge House to instruct Sam to pack for a stay in the country, realising, as he did so, that once again he had unwittingly found himself embroiled in uncovering crime.
Amy