Winged Victory Read online

  “I was younger in those days. I have grown more careful with age and have begun to think not only of my reputation but also of my life.”

  Eddie laughed.

  “Equally I thought that tonight you were not enjoying yourself and, if you are to persist in fighting a crusade to save this girl and her horse, you may as well enjoy it.”

  “I am enjoying it, as it happens,” the Earl answered, “but the last thing I want is for anybody to suspect that I am involved with Melford, whom I loathe and detest.”

  It suddenly struck Eddie that the Earl’s boredom during the dinner party had not been because he was worried over his ‘crusade’ as he called it, but because he was not enjoying himself with Ileni Carrington.

  He had suspected before the Earl went to Newmarket that he was not as interested in her as he had been previously.

  Yet when she had been so obviously delighted to see him this evening, he told himself that he had been mistaken and they were just as close as they had ever been.

  Now he recalled that when once or twice he had glanced at the Earl during dinner he had seemed preoccupied and was not as engrossed with Ileni as he would have expected.

  He wanted to ask his friend frankly if the affaire de coeur was at an end.

  But he knew, close though he was to the Earl and, although they had been together in many tight corners and had shared both dangerous and joyous occasions, there was one thing he dared not probe into and that was the Earl’s private life when it came to love.

  The horses drew up in Berkeley Square and the Earl enquired,

  “Are you coming in for a drink or do you wish my carriage to carry you home?”

  “I will come in for a drink,” Eddie said, “but send the horses away, I will walk back.”

  The Earl knew that Eddie’s house, which belonged to his father, was no further away than Curzon Street. He therefore dismissed the carriage and they both went into the house.

  In the library there was champagne and other drinks waiting for them, but the Prince Regent’s hospitality had been over-generous and neither Eddie nor the Earl wanted anything more to drink.

  Then, as if he read his mind, the Earl said,

  “Tomorrow, as it is Friday, I intend to go home. Are you coming with me?”

  “Of course, if you want me to.”

  “I always want you,” the Earl replied, “and I think, as you know the secret I am hiding, it would be a good idea if you met Cledra and helped me think what I can do with her once she is well enough to travel.”

  “You are sending her away?”

  “If she was younger I would have sent her to school,” the Earl answered, “but I can hardly leave her indefinitely with my grandmother in case Melford discovers where she is hiding.”

  He was speaking almost as if he were talking to himself.

  “There are only old servants in the Dower House who would not know what to do if he tried to snatch her away or ill-treat her.”

  “You can hardly take her to The Hall,” Eddie remarked.

  “I am aware of that, but I have been wondering if I should find a chaperone of some sort and send her to the house I have in Cornwall. You have been there once, do you remember?”

  “Of course I remember it,” Eddie replied. “It’s a lovely place, but she might be frightened there by herself and very bored with no one to talk to.”

  “I have a feeling that she might be quite happy as long as she had her horse with her,” the Earl said. “At the same time it could be dull for her, or worse still, she would be very vulnerable if her uncle found out where she was.”

  Eddie was about to tease the Earl for being so concerned about a young girl, who he had said was little more than a child and with whom he had such a short acquaintance.

  Then he knew that the Earl was almost fanatical in the way that he loathed cruelty.

  If his story was true, which Eddie knew it was, then the punishment that Melford had inflicted on his niece was something that the Earl would be determined to revenge, however long it took him.

  Aloud he said,

  “Because I am quite convinced, Lennox, that you are determined to get even with Melford sooner or later and teach him a lesson he will never forget, the best thing would be to get it over quickly. Why not pick some excuse for a duel with him? You are a superb shot and he would not have a chance.”

  “That is exactly why it is something I could not do,” the Earl replied.

  “That wretched child did not have much chance when he was beating her,” Eddie commented dryly.

  “It could also,” the Earl replied as if he was again following the train of his own thoughts, “hurt Cledra if it became known how her uncle had treated her or if she was involved in any way.”

  Eddie realised that this was true.

  If the Earl did fight a duel with Sir Walter, it would be the talk of London and the reason for it would be a question that everybody would ask.

  “You are right, Lennox!” he exclaimed. “That was a stupid suggestion, but how else can we annihilate him short of pushing him into the Thames and holding his head under?”

  “We will find an opportunity sooner or later,” the Earl answered, “and I can only hope that he will not do too much damage in the meantime.”

  Eddie knew that once again the Earl was thinking of Cledra and it surprised him.

  Half an hour later he announced,

  “Goodnight Lennox. I must go home.”

  Stepping into Berkeley Square and turning left towards Curzon Street, Eddie walked slowly because he had a great deal to think about.

  Whatever he had expected to hear from the Earl, it had certainly not been the story that he had regaled him with the night before last and he thought now that the whole problem was larger than he had imagined at first.

  It was certainly occupying the Earl’s mind to the exclusion of all else.

  ‘It will do him good,’ he decided. ‘He has been more bored lately than I have ever known him. Now he seems to have woken up and is back to his old self and when he is like this he is the most exciting man I have ever met.’

  He was also anticipating how much he would enjoy himself as he always did at Poynton Hall.

  When he reached home, he went on thinking about the Earl until he fell asleep.

  *

  The Earl had said that as he had something to do in the morning that involved, although he did not tell Eddie so, buying a present for Ileni. They would leave at about eleven-thirty, which would get them comfortably to The Hall in time for luncheon.

  He ordered his phaeton and chose to drive a new team of bays that were not quite as spectacular as his chestnuts.

  But they were a recent purchase and he was interested to see how they were shaping up.

  He also told the two outriders who were accompanying him to ride horses that were in his London stable but which he had not yet taken to the country.

  He had decided that one would make an excellent jumper and he intended to try him over the Steeplechase Course that he had just erected at The Hall.

  He was as usual looking forward to going home for, whatever other houses he owned, The Hall was to him his real home and of far more consequence than any of his other possessions.

  He told his secretary to send invitations to various local people, whom he found amusing, to dine with him on Saturday night and thought that Eddie would enjoy their company as much as he did.

  When he came back from Bond Street with a very expensive but exquisitely designed piece of jewellery for Ileni, he wrote her a note which he knew would make it clear what the present meant.

  It was now waiting to be delivered to Ileni at her house in Park Street at three o’clock when, as she had told the Earl, her husband would be in the House of Commons.

  “Is everything ready?” he asked the butler after handing him the package.

  “The phaeton should be round in five minutes, my Lord.”

  “That will just give me time to change.”<
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  The Earl went upstairs to find Yates waiting for him with a more comfortable driving coat than the one he had worn in Bond Street.

  “Are you changing your Hessians, my Lord?” Yates enquired.

  The Earl hesitated as to whether he should put on a pair of the new boots with the turned- over tops that Beau Brummel had just made fashionable.

  Then he shook his head.

  “These new Hessians are quite comfortable. But they still need breaking in, so I will keep them on.”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  Yates was well aware that the Earl, while meticulous about his appearance, unlike the dandies. preferred to wear clothes that were comfortable rather than spectacular.

  He therefore gave the impression, while being exceedingly smart, of wearing his clothes as if they were a part of him and he was therefore completely unselfconscious about them.

  “You will be following me in the brake,” the Earl said, as he was ready to leave the room, “and when you reach The Hall find out, but very carefully, whether there have been any enquiries made about Miss Melford or her horse.”

  “I’ve thought of that already, my Lord,” Yates replied, “and your Lordship can trust me to be ever so discreet.”

  “I do trust you, as you well know,” the Earl answered, “but make no mistake, Yates, we are dealing here with a cunning and crafty villain.”

  “I knows that, my Lord, and, if you’ve been worryin’ about the young lady, so have I. She wouldn’t be able to stand up to that treatment another time.”

  “No, that is true,” the Earl agreed, “so we must make sure that there is not another time.”

  “We’ll do that, my Lord.”

  The Earl walked downstairs and, glancing at the clock, saw that it was two minutes to half-past.

  Having been a soldier, Eddie was a good timekeeper and the Earl was quite certain that he would not keep him waiting.

  He went to his desk in the library to pick up some papers that his secretary had left for him, but which he had not yet had time to read.

  They concerned improvements that were to be made on his estate in Hertfordshire, the repairs that were required on his Hunting Lodge in Leicestershire and plans for a new almshouse that he had ordered to be built before Christmas on some land he owned in Kent.

  He was just wondering which he should read first when the door of the library opened and Eddie came in.

  The Earl looked up with a smile.

  “On the minute,” he exclaimed. “I was just going to accuse you of keeping me waiting.”

  Then he saw the expression on his friend’s face and asked,

  “What is the matter? What has happened?”

  Eddie walked to the desk and, as he faced the Earl across it, he said,

  “I hardly know how to tell you this. I thought it must be a coincidence, but after what you have told me I am afraid it is not.”

  “What are you talking about?” the Earl asked sharply.

  There was a pause before Eddie spoke in a voice that hardly sounded like his own,

  “Ileni Carrington was found dead this morning!”

  For a moment the Earl thought that either Eddie must be joking or he had not heard him aright.

  Then, as he did not speak, Eddie said,

  “It is true, Lennox. I have just come from the Club and they were talking of nothing else.”

  “What happened?”

  Eddie sat down on a chair before he replied,

  “Everybody was saying how extraordinary her death was. According to her uncle, who had been sent for as her parents are not in this country, she drove back from the party and went immediately to bed.”

  “Was Carrington at home?”

  “No. He was attending a Parliamentary dinner given for some Foreign Statesman who is visiting this country at the present time.”

  “Go on.”

  “He came back two hours after his wife and, because he was late and did not wish to disturb her, he slept in another room.”

  The Earl did not say anything, but he knew that Ileni and her husband had occupied separate rooms for some time.

  But that was irrelevant to what had happened and he merely asked,

  “There was nothing wrong with her when she went to bed?”

  “Her lady’s maid said that she was in good spirits and not overtired,” Eddie replied.

  The Earl waited and he went on,

  “Carrington told the doctors that he was awoken at five o’clock this morning by his wife’s screams and went into her bedroom.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “She was in an agony of pain, throwing herself about and unable to keep still.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He rang for her maid, then thinking that it would be sometime before the woman answered, he ran to the top of the stairs and shouted to the night footman in the hall to fetch a doctor.”

  “I suppose that would also have taken time,” the Earl remarked reflectively.

  “When Carrington went back into the bedroom, his wife was lying on the floor and she appeared to be dead, except that she was twitching all over.”

  The Earl immediately remembered the description of how Jessop had died.

  “Twitching all over,” he murmured beneath his breath.

  “That is how it was described by Carrington to Ileni’s uncle,” Eddie said. “It apparently made a deep impression on him.”

  “But she was dead.”

  “Yes, she was dead,” Eddie agreed. “By the time the doctor arrived, there was nothing he could do.”

  “What did they say was the cause of her death?”

  “Mrs. Carrington’s uncle said when he asked him that question at White’s that he thought that she must have had a fit of some sort.”

  “There was no suspicion of poison?”

  “Actually I asked him that question.” Eddie replied, “and the answer was that there had been no complaints from anybody else at the dinner party.”

  The eyes of the two men met and the Earl sighed,

  “What we are both thinking must be impossible.”

  “That is exactly what I thought. At the same time it is a strange coincidence. After what you told me about Ludlow’s horse, I made some enquiries about poisons yesterday from a friend of mine who has spent many years of his life in the East.”

  The Earl was listening intently.

  “He said,” Eddie continued, “that both the Indians and the Chinese have poisons that leave no trace and that no autopsy, however skilfully done in this country, can diagnose whether or not a victim has died of them.”

  “How would Melford get hold of a poison of that sort?” the Earl asked.

  “I had intended today, if you had not asked me to go to the country with you,” Eddie replied, “to make enquiries as to whether he had ever been in the East or was known to associate with people who had. I do not feel that it will get us very much further, but I think that any clue concerning what is occurring could be of great importance.”

  “You are right there,” the Earl nodded.

  “What is vital,” Eddie went on, as if the Earl had not spoken, “is to find out if he connects you with Cledra’s disappearance or whether he is just getting his own back because you bought nothing at his sale.”

  “I can answer that question quite simply,” the Earl replied harshly. “He must be connecting me with Cledra’s disappearance and he is sure that I am hiding her horse. That is why Ileni died. Now we have to act quickly to prevent him from murdering anybody else!”

  *

  Both the Earl and Eddie were silent as they drove out of London and Eddie was aware that the Earl, which was unlike him, was pushing his horses to a greater speed than was usual.

  It was not only difficult to speak when they were travelling so swiftly but Eddie was also aware that the Earl was turning over and over in his brain what had happened.

  He was trying to find a solution to one of the most intriguing and a
t the same time frightening situations that he had ever been confronted with.

  What they were facing was cold-blooded murder and it was only because they knew of Sir Walter Melford’s previous activities that they had any grounds for thinking that he might be involved.

  But there was nothing they could say in a Court of Justice or anywhere else that would not endanger Cledra and would in fact not be laughed at as having no substance in fact.

  Lord Ludlow’s horse Jessop had died of a ‘fit’. Ileni had died of a ‘fit’.

  But how could there be proved to be any connection between the two?

  If a Guardian saw fit to beat his niece for misbehaviour, then the Law upheld his right to do so and would consider it a proper punishment for any young person who stepped out of line.

  To Eddie the whole situation seemed a hopeless maze in which there was no way out, but he knew that the Earl was never defeated whatever the odds against him.

  All he could hope was that he would act quickly before another innocent person was murdered.

  They reached the lodge gates at Poynton Hall in ten minutes under the Earl’s previous record. Eddie felt quite breathless with the speed they had travelled and sympathised with the horses who were sweating and the outriders who had found it hard to keep up with them.

  The Earl brought his team to a standstill just inside the gates and then beckoned to the outriders who came to the side of the phaeton.

  “Go on to the house,” he ordered, “and tell them that we shall be a little late for luncheon, but I have a message to convey to her Ladyship.”

  The outriders touched the peaked caps they wore over their white wigs respectfully and one of them replied,

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  The Earl turned his horses down the narrow path which led to the Dower House and, as they reached the front door, Yates clambered down to run to the horses’ heads.

  Eddie followed the Earl into the hall.

  “Her Ladyship will see me?” the Earl asked the old butler.

  “I thinks her Ladyship guessed you might be coming, my Lord,” Dorkins replied. “She asked for a bottle of champagne nigh on an hour ago.”