‘We can rule out her husband,’ said Ackford, reflectively. ‘She called herself Mrs Holdstock but I didn’t get the impression that she was married. I saw her left hand when she took off her gloves. There was no wedding ring.’
‘I wish that I’d met her,’ said Paul. ‘She sounds like an intriguing lady. What sort of a person was she, Gully?’
‘She was very pleasant but single-minded. Mrs Holdstock had no time at all for conversation. She never told me where she lived or what her husband – if he ever existed, that is – thought of her coming here. Charlotte met her one day and even she couldn’t get much information out of the woman. Mrs Holdstock let none of us know about her private life.’
‘Did you get the feeling that she was hiding something?’
‘Oh, yes – there’s no question of that.’
‘I saw her leaving on one occasion,’ recalled Jem. ‘As I was coming down the street, Mrs Holdstock left the gallery and walked to the corner where she was met by a tall, dark gentleman who raised his hat to her then offered his arm. So perhaps there is a Mr Holdstock, after all.’
‘He might also be her accomplice,’ said Paul, interest rising. ‘Mrs Horner was abducted by a man and a woman. You might have been looking at both of them, Jem. Describe this fellow.’
His first attempt was a disaster. The arrow missed the tree altogether and bounced off the stone wall at the end of the garden. Jane Holdstock laughed. She showed him how to hold the bow before fitting the arrow into place. Then she helped him to draw back the bowstring. When he released it, the arrow hit the outer edge of the target that hung from the tree.
‘That was a definite improvement, Vincent,’ she said, encouragingly.
‘It was only because you were helping me.’
‘I struggled at first then, all at once, I got the knack of it.’
‘I’ll leave it to you from now on.’
After retrieving the arrows, Vincent Diamond led the way back into the house. Though pleased to have received the ransom money, they were still annoyed that their instructions had been disobeyed.
‘I was afraid that Beyton might do something silly like that,’ he said. ‘It was just as well you hired someone to take the purse from him. Otherwise, you’d have been grabbed by that man and I’d have been obliged to shoot.’
‘I’m glad that it never came to that.’
‘So am I. There were too many witnesses.’
‘Do you think that Beyton will be able to raise the money in time?’
‘That’s his problem, Jane,’ he said. ‘We’ve given him two days and it should be enough. That beautiful house of his is well beyond the reach of most clerks at the Home Office. Beyton must have private wealth.’
She smiled. ‘Then we’ll help to spend it wisely for him.’
‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’
‘What about Mrs Horner?’
‘She stays where she is until he pays up for the second time.’
‘Being locked up down there is really telling on her, Vincent,’ she said with a vestigial sympathy. ‘Whenever I go to the cellar, she’s weeping.’
‘Stop looking at her as a human being. She’s just a pawn in a game.’
‘Suppose that Mr Beyton refuses to obey our demand?’
‘Then his wife is going to have a very nasty surprise,’ he said. ‘But I doubt very much that we’ll be in that position. Beyton frightens easily. If he thinks that he’ll be responsible for Mrs Horner’s death, I’m sure that he’ll do as he’s told.’
Before they got within fifty yards of the old warehouse, they could hear the raucous noise from within. Hundreds of patrons were enjoying the spectacle of a terrier killing rats with methodical brutality in the ring. Bets were being laid about how many he’d dispatch in a certain length of time. Money changed hands briskly. When the corpses began to pile up, a man tipped another sack of live rats onto the sawdust. Most of them scurried to the corners of the ring and some even tried to run up the boards. When they saw the dog, a few even made the mistake of attacking him and were snapped in half by his gleaming teeth. Spectators urged the animal on and its owner shouted commands. The crowd surged to and fro around the ring.
It was into this maelstrom that Moses Dagg stepped. A place full of foul-mouthed ruffians, drunken sailors and a smattering of prostitutes was familiar territory for him. He’d been in similar establishments in ports around the world. As a regular visitor, Dermot Fallon felt completely at home, waving to people he knew and collecting a series of greetings. The only person who had reservations was Tom O’Gara. He’d seen the complacent grin on the face of Donkey Johnson, who was lounging in a corner with a tankard in his hand and a couple of burly friends beside him. For the first time, O’Gara realised the scale of the challenge that Dagg was taking on. In the mounting delirium, and with the vast majority of people cheering him on, Johnson would be a formidable opponent.