The Many Sins of Cris De Feaux (Lords of Disgrace) Read online

  ‘…so help me God,’ the old man concluded.

  ‘You are Thomas Gedge, fisherman?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘And you frequent Cat’s Nose Bay?’

  ‘Don’t know about frequent it. I keeps me fishing boat there and me shed with me nets and all.’

  Sir James glowered. ‘And were you there on the night of Wednesday last and for what purpose?’

  ‘Aye, I was there, having a bit of a smoke in me shed. The wife’s mother had come to visit and a man can’t get any peace in his own home with two women clacking. It was a good, warm night, so down I go to the cove. I was there from when the church clock struck eight to past one.’

  ‘Aye, and with a brandy bottle, too, I’ll be bound!’ someone called from the back.

  ‘Silence in court! And you could see the beach?’

  ‘The door to the shed was open, but I can’t see the beach on account of the shed’s with the others, up aways. I could see the track down to the beach.’

  ‘And did you see anyone go down it that night?’

  ‘Aye, I did that.’ A whisper of interest ran round the room. ‘It was that new Riding Officer, Ritchie. Recognised his hat and the cocky way he has…had…of walking. And the moonlight caught his face as he went past. I thought to myself, you’ll find no one down there to bother, you interfering devil, you.’

  ‘Did you see anyone else?’

  ‘I did. About ten minutes after, it was. Figure in a cloak, all muffled up and walking quietly, like they didn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘And is that person in this court?’

  ‘How would I know, your worship? He was all muffled up, like I said.’

  ‘Was it a man?’

  ‘Could be. Might have been a tallish woman, I suppose.’ He shrugged. ‘I had a bit of a doze. Then I woke up and was just thinking the motherin-law would have gone to bed and it’d be safe to go home when I heard a shot. I thought about it a bit, then I closed the door of the shed and waited until I heard footsteps going up the track. Then I waits some more and then I went to have a look and there was Ritchie on the beach in the moonlight with a bullet in his back and blood all over the stones.’

  ‘Why did you wait before going out to look, man?’ Sir James asked irritably.

  ‘Because I didn’t want a bullet in me head, of course. Then I went and got Fred Dare out of bed, much good he was.’

  ‘That will be all. You may go back to your seat. Frederick Dare, take the stand.’

  Gabriel Stone leant forward as the constable took the oath and murmured across Tamsyn to Cris, ‘And that is it? One cloaked figure of indeterminate sex?’

  ‘There will be more,’ Cris said.

  The constable recounted being woken, getting dressed, fetching some of the local men in support and finding the body on the beach.

  ‘And were there any traces of the murderer to be seen?’

  ‘Aye, there was, your worship. There was an object lying under the body. It’s that there object in the black bag before you, your worship. We carried the body up to the church, and woke up the vicar, then I went to tell you and you told me to search the neighbourhood for any strangers or news of anyone behaving suspiciously, and that I did. That night I didn’t find anyone, but the next day I came across this traveller in the inn and he said he’d been out for a walk and had seen something odd. So I brought him to see you, Sir James.’

  ‘Thank you, Dare. You may stand down and call the next witness.’

  The local doctor came to the stand and explained in lengthy and gruesome detail that the deceased had been killed by one bullet to the heart and showed no other signs of injury.

  Tamsyn found she was watching the proceedings, slow and rustic and ponderous, as though they were a rather bad play. She ought to feel something, fear, or curiosity at least, but all she felt was numb.

  Beside her Cris whispered, ‘Now we come to the interesting witness.’

  A thin man with a very ordinary, instantly forgettable face, took the oath and stood clutching his hat and staring stolidly at the coroner. He had brown hair pulled back in an old-fashioned queue, brown eyes, a brown suit of decent, but plain clothes.

  ‘State your name and occupation and business in this parish.’

  ‘Paul Goode, solicitor’s clerk of Gray’s Inn Road, London.’ Tamsyn felt a sudden prickle of interest. The accent was southern, the man a total stranger. ‘I was sent by my employer, Mr Ebenezer Howard, on a business enquiry, which took me further down the coast from here. I was making my way back and stayed overnight at this inn, your worship. I’d been hoping to get to Barnstaple, but the roads defeated my old horse, so I rested us both up.’

  ‘Tell us what you might that will throw light on this business, Mr Goode.’

  ‘I went for a walk after my supper, sir. I wasn’t sleepy. It was a nice moonlit night and the seaside is a novelty for a city man like myself. I wasn’t sure where to go, but I saw a man walking down the track that I discovered later led to the beach and I followed, assuming if he was going down it, it must head somewhere. I got a stone in my shoe, so I sat down on the bank and took it off and someone else passed me. I followed along, rather cautiously, sir, because I thought maybe I would be interrupting a tryst and that would be a bit embarrassing.’

  ‘A tryst?’ Sir James looked at him over his spectacles and Tamsyn thought he was tense now, like a weasel about to leap on its prey. ‘An odd word to choose, Mr Goode, for a possible meeting between two men. You may stand down, but do not leave the room.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he hear all the man’s evidence?’ Tamsyn whispered to Cris.

  ‘No idea. He’s stage-managing the whole performance.’

  ‘Call Mrs Tamsyn Perowne to the stand.’

  Cris rose with her, his hand under her arm until she turned with a smile and shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Once she was no longer waiting it was easier. She took the stand, repeated the oath, folded her hands on the rail in front of her and turned the calmest face she could manage on Sir James.

  ‘You are Mrs Tamsyn Perowne, widow of Jory Perowne, leader of the Silver Hand gang of smugglers.’

  ‘I am Jory Perowne’s widow,’ she agreed. ‘But I have never heard his relationship with that gang confirmed in a court of law.’

  ‘You knew the victim of this murderous attack?’

  ‘I had met Lieutenant Ritchie on one occasion. He came to Barbary Combe House and introduced himself. A brief conversation on the front lawn was the extent of our encounter. I have not seen him before or after that.’

  ‘And did he issue a warning to you?’

  ‘He told us that a gang of smugglers was operating. I took that to be a caution in case they proved violent.’

  ‘Did you, indeed? A curious construction to put on it, considering your late husband’s business.’ When she merely stood impassive and waited for the next question he snapped, ‘And who is this us you speak of?’

  ‘Myself, my relative Miss Holt, with whom I live, her companion, Miss Pritchard, our staff and two gentlemen who are our guests. You met them the day before yesterday. Mr Defoe and Mr Stone are sitting in the front row now.’

  ‘Did your husband wear a charm around his neck?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘A silver hand on a silver chain.’

  ‘And is it unique?’

  She had expected a question about the whereabouts of Jory’s charm, but she answered immediately, knowing that hesitation would only create a bad impression. ‘I owned one also. A replica with an engraved message that was a gift from my husband.’

  ‘And where is it now?’

  ‘I have no idea. It appears to have been stolen from the locked chest it was kept in.’

  There was a whispering of excitement and speculation in the court. ‘Stolen, you say? It must be a valuable piece, why has no reward been offered for it?’

  ‘Because its loss has only just been discovered.’ As soon as she spoke she felt a twinge of fea
r.

  Sir James smiled. ‘Indeed? Constable, show the witness the contents of the black bag, then pass it to the jury.’

  Tamsyn did not need to see the river of silver links that spilled into Dare’s calloused hand to know what this was, but she waited until he handed it to her and made a point of examining it carefully. ‘This is the hand and chain given to me by my late husband. It is engraved J and T with a heart.’ She let it run back into the constable’s outstretched hand and wondered if she should remove her handkerchief and permit herself a brave sniff and a dab at her eyes, but the thought of play-acting sickened her. Let them believe her or not, she would give them the truth and nothing else.

  The coroner waited until the hand had been passed along the rows of jurors and returned to him. ‘This chain and the attached charm were found clasped in the dead hand of Lieutenant Ritchie as he lay on the beach at Cat’s Nose Bay. As you have heard, gentlemen of the jury, the witness has identified them as her property.’

  Put there to incriminate me. The words were almost out of her mouth before she caught them. The jury did not need her to underline the conclusion they were being led to.

  ‘You know the cove in question, Mrs Perowne?’

  ‘Certainly. I visit it occasionally. I believe the last time this year was in March when a fishing boat belonging to me was washed up there.’ It felt like standing on a frozen pond, hearing the ice cracking, feeling it shift under her feet, wanting to run. But she had to stand there, stay calm, not defensive.

  ‘Mr Goode, return to the front of the court. Remember you are still on oath.’

  The whispering increased as the thin man made his way forward and stood, perfectly composed in his respectable drabness, looking at the coroner.

  ‘You told the court that you saw a cloaked figure following Lieutenant Ritchie down to the beach. Can you describe that man?’

  ‘I can, sir. But it was no man, it was a woman. She was wearing a cloak, but the hood was down and I could see her plain in the moonlight. Quite tall she was.’

  The whispering broke out into exclamations. Tamsyn’s hands hurt and she looked down to see them locked on the rough bar at the front of the stand. A split ran all along the seam of the right index finger of her glove.

  ‘Silence in court! And can you see that woman in this courtroom?’

  Goode hesitated, bit his lip. ‘It bleaches the colour out, does the moonlight.’

  A nice touch, she thought, wondering at her own detachment.

  ‘Try, Mr Goode,’ the coroner said with an encouraging smile.

  The man turned to the stand and made a show of studying her. She made herself stare back, expressionless, while her stomach seemed to drop into a pit and her heart rate kicked up to a gallop.

  ‘Er…if the lady could turn sideways to me?’

  ‘Mrs Perowne, please do as the witness asks.’

  She made her feet move although her legs were trembling, turned to face Sir James, lifted her chin and met the coroner’s gaze steadily.

  ‘That’s her! That’s the lady I saw. I couldn’t mistake that profile, the moonlight lit her up, clear as day.’

  Tamsyn turned back slowly to face him. ‘Liar,’ she said without emphasis, wondering if she was about to faint. The coroner’s words to the witness were a blur of sound as she focused on breathing, on keeping the blackness at the edge of her vision from moving in.

  ‘Mrs Perowne, you heard the witness. What have you to say?’

  ‘He is either lying or he is mistaken. I was not at the cove, I was at home at Barbary Combe House.’ As she spoke the reality hit her. She had been at home, but not in the house. She had been in the lookout with Cris, making love, lying in his arms, tiptoeing back into the house at three in the morning.

  Something must have shown in her face, for Sir James leaned forward. ‘Are you certain of that, Mrs Perowne?’ When she nodded he smiled, thinly. ‘And can you prove it?’

  ‘No,’ she said bleakly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cris Defoe, coming to his feet.

  Sir James narrowed his eyes at him. ‘You wish to present evidence, sir?’

  ‘I wish to take the stand and swear to an alibi for Mrs Perowne.’

  ‘Very well. Mrs Perowne, return to your seat. Mr… Defoe, is it not? Take the stand.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered as Cris passed her. ‘It will ruin me.’

  Cris took the oath. She stared, uncomprehending, as Gabriel Stone sat beside her muttering, ‘Bloody fool, he must know where this will end up.’

  ‘Give the court your name, if you please, sir.’

  ‘Anthony Maxim Charles St Crispin de Feaux of Avenmore Park and St James’s Square.’

  ‘The—’

  ‘Yes,’ Cris said abruptly and with emphasis. ‘I believe that is sufficient to identify me.’

  ‘I understand. Well, m…sir, what have you to add to the proceedings?’

  ‘I do not know who Mr Goode saw, but Mrs Perowne was with me that night.’

  ‘We are aware that you are a guest in the house and that you would expect your hostess to be there in her own chamber after the party had broken up and gone to bed. However, the shooting occurred at past one in the morning.’

  ‘When I say that Mrs Perowne was me that night, I mean that I was with her,’ Cris said, his face an austere mask. ‘We were together. All night. Do you require me to draw you a diagram, Sir James?’

  The courtroom exploded into a hubbub. Tamsyn knew she had gone white, she felt as though there was no blood left in her head at all. What was he thinking? He had ruined her.

  After much banging of the coroner’s gavel and shouting by the constable, order was restored.

  ‘Do I understand you to mean that Mrs Perowne is your mistress, my…sir?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Cris snapped. ‘The lady is my affianced bride.’

  Beside her Gabriel Stone was swearing under his breath, a litany of obscenities that, mercifully, she could hardly make out through her fog of relief, dismay and confusion.

  ‘Ah. In that case, naturally, it becomes apparent that Mr Goode must be mistaken. Mr Goode?’

  The constable looked round wildly as people began to crane their necks. ‘He’s gone, sir.’

  ‘Then you must see that he was lying, that he had been put up to this by the real criminal—or that he himself was the murderer?’ Cris demanded.

  Sir James hesitated, then snapped, ‘Constable, find that man Goode and arrest him! Gentlemen of the jury, you must disregard everything you heard from that witness. Thank you, sir, you may stand down.’

  ‘But I will not.’ Tamsyn found she could think, speak, and that she was on her feet. ‘Sir James, Mr Defoe has most gallantly spoken out to save me from this accusation, but the inference you have drawn from his words is incorrect, as he intended it to be. Yes, I spent that night in his company, late into the night, in fact. But we were up on the cliffs walking because I was distressed over a family matter and could not sleep, and Mr Defoe was protecting me with his escort when I insisted on going out so late.’

  ‘But he has said you are betrothed to him.’

  ‘What else could a gentleman say when he has, for the best of reasons, ruined a lady’s reputation? He was not lying—after all, having led you to believe the worst he obviously felt himself honour-bound to make me his wife, even though he has said nothing to me.’

  ‘I see. This is all most unfortunate. The witness may stand down and the court accepts that there is no stain on Mrs Perowne’s virtue and therefore no need for…er… Mr Defoe’s gallant action.’ For a moment Sir James appeared flustered, then he cleared his throat. ‘Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence, you must now decide your verdict.’

  Tamsyn sat numb as Cris came back to the seat beside her. He had put himself in a position where, in order to safeguard her reputation, he had offered to marry her. Did that mean, could it mean, that he loved her? She hardly dared think beyond the burgeoning warmth that was defeating the numbness now
.

  Nothing was said as the jurymen trooped out to debate their verdict. It took them all of ten minutes.

  ‘Your worship, we do find that Lieutenant Ritchie was foully and deliberately murdered by a gunshot fired by a person or persons unknown. And we are all agreed it ain’t likely to be a woman, neither, and specially not Mrs Perowne, who’s a lady we all know of and respect. And we agrees with you and Mr Defoe that that man Goode was lying. And that’s the opinion of us all.’ The foreman sat down with a thump and was patted on the back by his fellow jurors.

  Cris stood, took Tamsyn by the arm and walked her out, Gabriel on their heels. He led them to the stables, stood in silence while their horses were brought, then boosted her up into the saddle, mounted himself and headed out of the stable yard at a trot that turned into a canter the moment they were clear of the street.

  When they reached the open space at the crossroads, he reined in and waited for Tamsyn and Gabriel to catch up.

  ‘Cris, why on earth did you do that?’

  Please tell me you realised you love me…

  ‘I have saved you a trial,’ Cris said, getting Jackdaw under control as the stallion plunged and backed as Gabriel thundered up. ‘They would have put you in prison and I could not allow them to do that to you. And it exposed Goode as a liar and probably as the man who pulled the trigger.’

  ‘Of all the damn-fool things to have done!’ Gabriel exploded into speech the moment he was within earshot. ‘Couldn’t you have done something that didn’t almost involve you marrying a totally unsuitable woman?’

  ‘Mind your tongue, Stone.’ Jackdaw plunged again as Cris wheeled him to face Gabriel. ‘You will not speak disrespectfully of Mrs Perowne in my hearing.’

  ‘Disrespectful? She is a charming lady, an intelligent, beautiful lady, a wonderful hostess and great company.’ Gabriel, his face grim, sketched a bow from the saddle to Tamsyn. ‘She is also a smuggler’s window and, forgive me, ma’am, of simple gentry stock. She is not a suitable wife for a man in your position and you know it.’

  ‘Will you both please stop discussing me as though I am not here?’ Foxy had caught Jackdaw’s restlessness and was sidling away from the other horses, tossing his head. ‘What is Cris’s position?’ An awful thought struck her. ‘No, you aren’t going to tell me he is a duke and that you were not joking the other day.’