Sir Arthur Fisher entered silently, and for a long moment all three of them kept the silence up. At first it was appropriate, because whatever news they had, the situation was solemn, but rapidly it became an embarrassment, a pain. Will saw hope in the old man's face, hope fighting with despair. After some seconds he felt a wild desire to scream out, "It's all right, your nephew's found!" and the madness of it gave him a stabbing in his stomach. Sam raised both arms as if he also could not speak, and Sir A's face was like a landscape in a summer gale, with clouds and sunshine racing over it. Finally, a tortured release, Sam let out a groan. A noise followed from Sir Arthur like a sob, and the two moved together into each other's arms, their faces buried in each other's shoulders. Will turned away his eyes.
When Sir A drew back, his face was stricken but controlled. He nodded formally to Will, he pushed Sam gently towards a chair, and turned his back on them and stared into the dying fireglow.
"Tell me," he said. "You've found his body, have you not? Tell me where, and how he died."
It was swiftly, simply told by Samuel, who included Will and praised his knowledge and his history as the keys to their success. He started at the beginning, when they'd ridden off from Langham Lodge, and he emphasised the civility and humanity of the smugglers they had met. These, he told Sir Arthur, had blamed it on a lawless gang lawless by the terms of the fraternity probably young, probably drunk, who had behaved in a way none of their fellows would descend to, and whose bestial behaviour had put them 'in free trade terms, beyond the Pale'. Charles Yorke, he said, had been buried, roughly and without compunction of observance, in a country place that had been discovered to them by a young man 'eaten up by shame'. At the end of that, he faltered to a halt. In the rising light blazing through the enormous windows, Sir A, unblinkingly, studied him.
"Roughly, you say. Buried roughly, and without compunction. He was abused, then? Abused like Warren? Worse? Tell me, Samuel, I have to know. Poor Charles is dead. You must tell me the circumstances, however unbearable. I shall bear them."
When Sam had finished, the old man had shed a tear or two, but he did not avert his eyes or lower them at all. He was in his wig, despite the hour of the morning, and was fully dressed, despite he'd been in bed, so they assumed. For his own part, Will had a headache across the temples, the ache of lack of sleep, although he was anything but sleepy. For his life, he could not see how this would end. Now there was another silence, longer than the first, and not embarrassing in any way. Sir Arthur Fisher thought, and Will and Sam sat with him, waiting. Will sat, and waited, and his head hurt. That was all.
"I do not believe it," said Sir Arthur, in the end. "I do not believe your simple tale at all. You must go back for me. Will you?"
As a bombshell going off, it had a strange, delayed effect. They heard the words, but did not seem to understand. They had told a simple tale, and he did not believe it. They were dislocated. For moments more they did not speak. Sam broke the silence.
"Do not believe what aspect of it, sir? But surely ... ?"
"It is too pat, too simple. Outsiders, young and drunk? So why were Yorke and Warren mistreated so abominably, why were their bodies hidden and abused? Most Customs men die in the heat of confrontation, you must know that, they meet a band who are too well armed and desperate and they lose the sudden battle. Most of all, their bodies are not hid. They are abandoned where they fall, they are casualties in a war that is as open as it is long-standing. This is not the normal run, it is of a different quality. Our two men disappeared, entirely. With not a word of anything going on at all, least of all a sudden bloody skirmish. Do drunk hotheads go to such strange lengths? I do not believe it."
"But," Samuel began. He faltered. "Perhaps it is not the whole tale, but..."
"There is a reason," said Sir A. His voice, despite it all, was strong and clear, his presence suddenly commanding. "My nephew and Warren were put to death and hidden for some reason, and not by drunken layabouts. Nay, drunk they may have been, I hope for reasons of humanity that they were, as drunk as fiddlers' bitches. But the thing was planned, and executed, for a reason. Either something had been discovered, or ... or I do not know. But I will, I must. You both must go back for me, I ... require it. Request it. Humbly."
"But the Biter, sir," said Will. "Our release from duty was for five days only. Lord Wodderley '
"Aye," cut in Sir A, as if distracted. "Aye, Kaye will expect you, certainly. Well, you must go and fight it out with him, and I will make more representation to Bobby Beaumont, by express. Now you have found my nephew so cruelly murdered more time will be allowed, no question of it. Can you go today? Oh no, you are exhausted, what am I saying, you must have sleep."
The authority was gone again, and he looked old and tired, an old, saddened man. But both of them knew, horribly, that he was right about the nature of the deaths, and they had been somehow duped. Both said they would go immediately to London, but Sir Arthur would have none of it, and called his man. The details they must leave, he said, the way to find Charles Yorke. Then a meal, a wash, sleep, they could even have a coach if they preferred it, which enabled them to do some young man's bantering on the theme of luxury, to ease the mood. With this in mind, also, Sam dropped in Deb. A shock for Sir A, he realised, but "Will here's took a shine to her. Perhaps a small hallo before we go away?"
Sir Arthur, drawn and grey, turned eyes from one to other of them as if they themselves were ghosts, or spoke a foreign language. Will blushed at his friend's crassness, and moved his hands dismissively.
"Sir," he said. "A jest. The maid is nothing to me, naturally."
"Aye," muttered Sir A. "The maid is nothing, that's a fact." His voice got stronger. "The slut has gone," he said. "And this time, good riddance. It is a little whore."
"Gone!" said Sam, although William was struck speechless by the shock. "What? Run away, sir, like the last time? Well, glory be!"
"Nay," said Sir Arthur, 'not run away. Wimbarton came for her, oh, yesterday. She's gone back with him to be his concubine, for all I know or care. As far as I can see he's saved her from the gallows, for the time at least. Mistress Wimbarton is dead, killed by the accomplice, that mountebank, and he's the one that's run this time. William, I can't believe you've took a shine to her, your friend here has a senseless sense of fun. But if you have done, rid yourself, I beg of you. The woman is, to all intents and purposes, a murderess."
Will, head splitting with exhaustion, tried hard to catch his thoughts and ask a question. But the door opened then, and Tony came in. Before Sir A had finished his instructions Mistress Hough-ton had arrived, guessed it all from the expressions, and took control. She bustled round Sir A like Mother Hen, and drove them out after hurried greetings, and thank-yous, and condolences -to the tender care of Tony and the women of the kitchen. In the passage just outside the door though, Sam turned to Tony fiercely.
"What?" he demanded. "About the maid? You heard him call her murderess. This Deborah, this little pretty thing. "Fore God, Tony, spit it out! And sense!"
There was little sense to be had so easily. All Tony knew was that last morning, Chester Wimbarton had turned up with an entourage led by such types of danger as Fiske and Jeremiah, and they had all come armed. Deb, known to be slippery, had been guarded instantly, while the magistrate and Sir A had been closeted some time. No shouts, no arguments, until they had emerged in twenty minutes and Deborah had been brought and told to go with them. Then there had been screaming, Tony allowed, for she had been hysterical as any wildcat, and screeched that Wimbarton was a liar and Sir A a fool or worse. In the end, with Sir A unmoved, she had been bundled up on to a horse no carriage had been bothered with tied across it like a bale of wool, and carried off. This last, he added, seeing Will's white face, had been considered pretty vile by all of them, and shaming that Sir A had allowed it. Although, by then, he'd gone inside and closed the door.