‘I think you’re right.’ Eloise began to loosen the silver net that bound her still boyishly short hair. ‘Now you mention it, I don’t recall her going up on deck on her own.’
‘No, but Robert Armiger joined you both in the cabin a short while after I did. Don’t you remember him cursing Lackpenny for a fool for trying to prove himself as good a man as his brother-in-law?’
She ran her fingers through her fair curls and nodded. ‘Will came in shortly afterwards. He was soaked to the skin.’
‘That proves nothing. The weather had worsened considerably by then.’
‘But it means he was alone for a while with Master Cook.’
‘But so was Robert Armiger,’ I pointed out. ‘He went up on deck before the rest of us to see if land was anywhere in sight. He could have tipped Oliver over the side then. And if it’s a choice between him and Will Lackpenny, I’d choose him. He’s by far the stronger of the two. Moreover, if it wasn’t him, surely he’d have noticed that Oliver wasn’t where he’d left him.’
Eloise shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Or if he did, he could just have presumed that Master Cook had taken himself off to another part of the deck. And if we’re assuming murder, what about the mysterious Frenchman, Monsieur d’Harcourt?’
I grunted. ‘I keep forgetting him. On the other hand, if we start casting him in the role of murderer, what does it make him? Certainly not the innocent traveller taking his way home aboard an English ship. No, no! Forget Master Harcourt. It complicates matters beyond all reason. We’re not even sure that Oliver’s disappearance is murder. It could easily have been an accident — an extra large wave, a buffet of wind that even he couldn’t withstand — or he might not be dead at all. Perhaps he did disembark before the rest of us without being noticed and will turn up presently, asking in that lovable way of his why, in Beelzebub’s name, we’re all making such a bloody fuss, and curse us for a pack of womanish fools.’
That made Eloise laugh, and sliding off the bed, she began to unpack her saddlebags prior to pulling the bed-curtains and performing her vanishing trick behind them. At the same time, one of the inn servants came upstairs with a ewer of hot water. The familiar evening ritual of the past five days had begun. I experienced an uneasy qualm: it occurred to me that, except in one vital respect, we were falling into the habits and routine of a married couple. With a great effort, I conjured up the faces of Adela and the children, but realized that it was becoming daily more difficult, that, very often, Eloise’s features would superimpose themselves on my wife’s, while the children’s were growing increasingly hazy.
The sooner this adventure were played out and finished, the better.
Unfortunately, it seemed to be getting ever more confusing and, probably, dangerous.
Fourteen
My sleep that night was disturbed by dreams — nothing of any significance or much that I remembered clearly the following morning, except one sequence when I was standing in the cloisters at St Paul’s and the skeletons from The Dance of Death all left the walls and cavorted round me, nodding and grinning. I could hear the clicking of their bones as they gradually drew closer, a circle tightening like the noose about a felon’s neck. The sweat was pouring from my body and I could barely breathe. I gasped for air, great rasping sounds forcing themselves from my chest and throat. One of the skeletons reached out a hand and took me by the shoulder.
‘Wake up, Roger!’ Eloise’s voice, full of alarm, sounded in my ear as she shook me violently. ‘What is it? Are you ill?’
I struggled to sit up, shivering suddenly as the chill of the bedchamber — the fire had long ago dwindled away to ashes — stroked my clammy skin. ‘No, no!’ I assured her. ‘Just riding the night mare, that’s all. Thank you for rousing me. I’m well enough.’
‘Praise heaven for that,’ she said, snuggling down under the bedclothes again. ‘You had me worried for a moment. Mind you,’ she added, ‘I’m not surprised you’re having bad dreams. I’ve had a few myself. What do we do tomorrow? Or today as I suppose it is by now. Do we start for Paris, or remain here with the Armigers, to see if Oliver Cook turns up?’
‘Ride on,’ I answered. ‘John has had word that your kinsman, this Olivier le Daim, will be in Paris no later than the end of the week, and, according to him, it will entail some hard riding on our part to reach the capital in time. Besides, John is convinced that Oliver Cook is drowned, whether accidentally or on purpose it doesn’t matter as far as he’s concerned. What is important is that you should see and speak to your cousin and try to discover what King Louis’s intentions are regarding the Burgundian alliance and the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the dauphin. We must leave the Armigers here to make their own enquiries.’
‘I hate abandoning Jane in these circumstances,’ Eloise murmured as I lay down again, pulling the bedclothes up around me. ‘Particularly as I sense she’ll get very little sympathy from that brute of a husband, who seems to be almost pleased by the notion that his brother-in-law might be gone for good. He showed no signs of distress this evening, while the rest of us were waiting for news. The only moment of anxiety he displayed was when we thought that Master Cook might, after all, have shown up. But, instead, it was only Monsieur d’Harcourt to say he’d picked up one of Robert Armiger’s saddlebags by mistake and was returning it.’
The Frenchman had indeed appeared halfway through the evening, having, according to him, searched for our party in half the inns of Calais before finding us, a mere two streets away, at the Blue Cat. On quitting the harbourside, he had, or so he said, walked off with a saddlebag belonging to Master Armiger and had brought it back. He had been thanked, but absentmindedly, by Robert, who admitted that he had not, so far, even noticed it was missing, and had then been apprised of our unhappy situation. The Frenchman had been all polite sympathy, but unable to help us, and had taken his leave as soon as he could decently do so without seeming to be too callous or unconcerned.
He gave the impression of a man chary of becoming entangled in other people’s problems — for which I could not blame him — but nevertheless, I felt uneasy. I did not understand how he could have picked up one of the Armigers’ saddlebags by mistake when he was possessed of only a baggage roll himself, and could not help wondering if it had been taken on purpose, the mistake, if there was one, being that it was not mine. Was he the innocent traveller that he seemed, or did his joining us at Dover have more sinister connotations?
Eloise’s sleepy voice cut across my teeming thoughts. ‘How can John be so certain that Monsieur le Daim is to be in Paris by the end of the week?’
‘Oh, he got word somehow,’ I answered in a voice as apparently sleepy as her own, followed by a very good imitation of a snore.
She seemed satisfied with this, turned her back to me and, a few minutes later, was breathing sweetly and deeply, fast asleep. I, on the other hand, remained awake a little while longer, reflecting that deception seemed to be an integral part of this mission; no one, including myself, was quite what he or she appeared to be.
During the course of a long, miserable evening of useless speculation and deepening fears, I had gone outside to get a breath of air and shake off the oppressive gloom of the inn parlour. Turning down a narrow alleyway that ran alongside the building, I had seen, at the end, standing beneath a wall-cresset that supported a flaming torch, John Bradshaw’s solidly upright figure in conversation with a little whippet of a man, who was talking earnestly in a low tone and fidgeting with the buckle of his belt. Neither man saw me nor heard my approach until I was close enough to realize that both men were speaking French. Admittedly, John’s was heavily overlaid with an English south-coast accent — Hampshire at a guess — but his language was fluent and rapid, and I could not help but remember how he had played down his ability to speak French to Eloise when they first met.