William Lackpenny took a hasty step forward, as though about to comfort her, before recollecting that it was not his place to do so. Instead, he looked reproachfully at Robert Armiger.
That worthy, however, was unmoved by his wife’s distress. ‘The fellow’s a damned nuisance,’ he burst out. ‘What does he mean by keeping us all waiting like this? I warn you, Jane, I’m not prepared to hang around here until he’s ready to appear! As soon as Master Chapman’s man returns, we’re off to whatever lodgings he’s found for us.’
It struck me that his bluster hid a growing anxiety.
‘Your brother-in-law must be still aboard somewhere,’ I said, trying to sound positive. ‘Maybe he went below deck towards the end of the journey and fell asleep. Facing into all that wind and rain crossing the Channel, as he insisted on doing, must have tired him out in the end.’
‘The conceited fool has the constitution of an ox,’ Robert Armiger snorted. ‘This is probably his stupid idea of a joke, just to get us worried.’ He turned furiously on his wife. ‘Your brother is an ignorant dolt!’ he spat at her. ‘This is your doing, I suppose, persuading him to ask for leave of absence and come with us to France. If I’d only known what you were plotting, my girl, we’d have stayed at home. You’re as big an idiot as he is!’
Jane burst into tears. Eloise, glaring at Robert Armiger, went forward and put a consoling arm about the other woman’s shoulders, forestalling William Lackpenny’s attempt to do the same.
‘You speak out of turn, sir!’ she said coldly. ‘Can’t you see that your wife is frightened?’ She went on, turning to me and putting into words what none of us had so far dared to mention, ‘Is it possible, do you think, Roger, that Master Cook might have fallen overboard?’
I frowned at her, but this bald statement of her worst fears seemed rather to calm Mistress Armiger than otherwise.
‘That’s what I’ve been wondering,’ she murmured tremulously.
Before anyone else could say anything, The Sea Nymph’s master returned to report that no trace of the missing passenger could be found. ‘We’ve searched the ship from prow to stern, sirs. We’ve looked in every place where even the smallest man might stow away, but without result. The gentleman’s not on board, and you can take my word for that.’ He chewed a broken fingernail. ‘You’re sure he didn’t precede you off the ship?’
‘No,’ Jane assured him, her voice breaking. ‘He didn’t. He. . he’s fallen overboard and drowned. Oh, Oliver! Oliver!’
She seemed likely to have hysterics. Her husband pushed Eloise unceremoniously aside and shook his wife violently. ‘Be quiet, you silly child! Be quiet! Of course he hasn’t fallen overboard, not a great lump like him. It would take more than a few squalls of wind and rain to dislodge that enormous brute. The master’s right. He slipped ashore ahead of us and is now wandering around the town. Probably looking for the nearest whorehouse, if I know him. Ah!’ He glanced at someone over my shoulder. ‘Here’s your man back, Master Chapman. Now, my good fellow, have you seen my brother-in-law Master Cook anywhere in the town?’
I turned round to encounter John Bradshaw’s look of enquiry. Briefly, I explained the situation and our fears for Oliver Cook’s safety. I saw at once, by his sudden unguarded expression, that he put the worst interpretation on events, but he had his features under control in a moment, and addressed Jane Armiger with his customary placid common sense.
‘No, we haven’t seen him, mistress — ’ he indicated Philip’s shadowy figure behind him — ‘but we’ve had too much to do, arranging stables and lodgings, to take note of everyone who’s passed us. The town’s that full of people! I don’t doubt your husband’s right and your brother disembarked before the rest of us. He was on deck for the whole of the voyage. I saw him several times whenever I ventured out of the lee of the fo’c’sle, where Philip and I were sheltering. And the light’s bad. You might well have missed noticing him.’
Nobody could have missed noticing the cook, and I could tell by the quizzical look in John’s eyes that he knew it as well as anyone. But his words seemed to have a calming effect on Jane Armiger and her sobs diminished. Her husband released her, and Eloise again took over as comforter, wrapping Jane’s cloak more warmly about her and murmuring gently in her ear.
‘I think it would be as well,’ she said, addressing the rest of us, ‘if we went at once to the inn John has found. Food and drink and rest will make us all feel better, and maybe, in an hour or so, we might have some news of Master Cook. John, will you lead the way? And afterwards, when you’ve seen us settled, perhaps you and Philip will come back for the baggage.’
The Blue Cat was a small inn in a side street not too far from the quay, wedged between an apothecary’s shop and a baker’s — not as grand as those we had stayed in previously on this journey, but clean and comfortable for all that. Three bedchambers had been put at our disposal — one for the Armigers, another for Eloise and myself, and a third, not much bigger than a cupboard, for Oliver and Will — and I discovered later that they comprised the Blue Cat’s total sleeping accommodation. When I asked John how this miracle had been worked in a town already teeming with visitors, he grinned and said it was better I didn’t know, which left me to draw the conclusion that a goodly sum of money had changed hands. (I feared Timothy Plummer was likely to have an apoplexy when we finally returned to London, to discover how much of his money had been spent. Or squandered, as he would no doubt call it.)
Eloise and I were favoured with the largest of the three chambers (again, John’s doing), and once we were alone, we were able to express our growing concern as to Oliver Cook’s probable fate.
‘He’s gone overboard,’ she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘I feel it in my bones.’
‘I’m very much afraid you’re right,’ I agreed gloomily, opening the window shutters a little, in spite of the weather, and staring down into the bustling street below.
It was by now quite dark, but the busy scene was illumined with wall torches, flaring and tearing sideways in the wind, the scent of the pitch-soaked rags adding to the other smells of sea water, fish, rotting refuse and unwashed bodies that make up the stench of most big ports. It reminded me of Bristol. I felt a nostalgic pang for home, and it was with an effort that I made myself attend to what Eloise was saying.
‘Was it an accident, or was it. .?’ She raised her eyes to mine, willing me to finish the sentence for her.
‘Or was it murder?’ I obliged.
‘Yes.’
I thought about it, and was still thinking about it when one of the inn servants brought up our saddlebags and deposited them, with a sigh and a thump, on the bedchamber floor. I took the hint and handed him a coin, which he eyed with suspicion and tested between his teeth, before finally taking himself off again. Eloise gave a little giggle, but sobered almost immediately.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘But if it’s murder,’ I answered, ‘what’s the motive? That’s the problem.’
She thought about this for a moment or two, nibbling an elegant forefinger. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘don’t let us forget that Oliver quarrelled violently with Master Armiger, nor that we believe him to have been responsible for Master Lackpenny’s black eye. I never for one second credited the story that Will walked into a door. And then again, Jane herself must have realized that Oliver was going to be a stricter chaperone than her husband, who’s far too set up in his own conceit to conceive of a rival to his manly charms. She and Will would find it difficult, with Master Cook around, to carry on their secret meetings.’
I shook my head over this last suggestion. ‘No. Not Jane Armiger. If Oliver Cook was murdered — and I’m not entirely convinced of that — he was thrown overboard. Taken unawares and heaved over the side. But only consider his size and weight. His sister couldn’t possibly have done it. Besides,’ I added, a thought striking me, ‘wasn’t she below with you all the time she was aboard?’