Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'I just think that over arm bowling will combine force with accuracy,' Sandman suggested, 'and might even present a challenge to the batsman.'

'Serious, I mean, about being offered twenty thousand pounds?'

'Guineas, Alexander, guineas. The men who made the offer consider themselves to be gentlemen.' Sandman stepped back and cracked the ball hard into the netting, close to where Lord Alexander was standing.

'Why would they offer you so much?'

'It's cheaper than death on the gallows, isn't it? The only trouble is I don't know for certain which member of the Seraphim Club is the murderer, but I hope to discover that this evening. You wouldn't like to lend me your carriage, would you?'

Lord Alexander looked puzzled. 'My carriage?'

'The thing with four wheels, Alexander, and the horses up front.' Sandman sent another ball scorching up the hill. 'It's in a good cause. Rescuing the innocent.'

'Well, of course,' Lord Alexander said with admirable enthusiasm. 'I shall be honoured to help you. Shall I wait at your lodgings?'

'Keeping Miss Hood company?' Sandman asked. 'Why not?' He laughed at Alexander's blushes, then backed away from the stumps as a young man walked towards the practice wickets from the tavern. There was something purposeful in the man's approach and Sandman was about to fetch his pistol when he recognised Lord Christopher Carne, the heir to the Earl of Avebury. 'Your friend's coming,' he told Lord Alexander.

'My friend? Oh, Kit!'

Lord Christopher waved in response to Lord Alexander's enthusiastic greeting, then noticed Sandman. He blanched, stopped and looked annoyed. For a heartbeat Sandman thought Lord Christopher was about to turn on his heel and walk away, but instead the bespectacled young man strode purposefully towards Sandman. 'You never told me,' he said accusingly, 'that you were visiting my father.'

'Did I need to tell you?' A ball kicked up and Sandman swayed aside to let it thump into the net behind.

'It would have been c-courteous,' Lord Christopher complained.

'If I need lessons in courtesy,' Sandman said sharply, 'then I shall go to those who treat me politely.'

Lord Christopher bridled, but lacked the courage to demand an apology for Sandman's truculence. 'I spoke to you in c-confidence,' he protested, 'and had no idea you would p-pass anything on to my father.'

'I passed on nothing to your father,' Sandman said mildly. 'I did not repeat one word you said. Indeed, I did not even tell him I had seen you.'

'He wrote to me,' Lord Christopher said, 'saying you'd visited and that I wasn't to speak with you again. So it's plain you're lying! You d-did tell him you spoke with me.'

The letter, Sandman thought, must have travelled on the same mail coach that brought him back to London. 'Your father deduced it,' Sandman explained, 'and you should have a care whom you accuse of telling lies, unless you're quite confident you are both a better shot and a better swordsman than the man you accuse.' He did not look to see the effect of his words, but instead danced two quick-steps down the pitch and drove at a delivery with all his strength. He knew the stroke was good even before the bat struck the ball, and then it shot away and the three men scything the playing wicket stared in awe as the ball streaked between them to take its first bounce just short of the uphill boundary and it still seemed to be travelling at the same speed with which it had left the bat when it vanished in the bushes at the top of the hill. It had gone like a six-pounder shot, Sandman thought, and then he heard it crack against the fence and heard a cow mooing in protest from the neighbouring meadow.

'Good God,' Lord Alexander said faintly, staring up the hill, 'good God alive.'

'I spoke hastily,' Lord Christopher said in scant apology, 'but I still don't understand why you should even need to go near Carne Manor.'

'Did you see how hard he struck that?' Lord Alexander asked.

'Why?' Lord Christopher insisted angrily.

'I told you why,' Sandman said. 'To discover whether any of your stepmother's servants had gone there.'

'Of course they wouldn't,' Lord Christopher said.

'Last time you thought it possible.'

'That's because I hadn't thought about it p-properly. Those servants must have known precisely what vile things my stepmother was doing in London and my father would hardly want them spreading such t-tales in Wiltshire.'

'True,' Sandman conceded. 'So I wasted a journey.'

'But the good news, Rider,' Lord Alexander intervened, 'is that Mister William Brown has agreed that you and I should attend on Monday!' He beamed at Sandman. 'Isn't that splendid?'

'Mister Brown?' Sandman asked.

'The Keeper of Newgate. I would have expected a man in your position to have known that.' Lord Alexander turned to a bemused Lord Christopher. 'It occurred to me, Kit, that so long as Rider was the Home Secretary's official Investigator, then he should certainly investigate the gallows. He should know exactly what awful brutality awaits people like Corday. So I wrote to the Keeper and he has very decently invited Rider and myself to breakfast. Devilled kidneys, he promises! I've always rather liked a properly devilled kidney.'

Sandman stepped away from the stumps. 'I have no wish to witness a hanging,' he said.

'It doesn't matter what you wish,' Lord Alexander said airily, 'it is a matter of duty.'

'I have no duty to witness a hanging,' Sandman insisted.

'Of course you do,' Lord Alexander said. 'I confess I am apprehensive. I do not approve of the gallows, but at the same time I discover a curiosity within me. If nothing else, Rider, it will be an educational experience.'

'Educational rubbish!' Sandman stepped back to the wicket and played a straight bat to a well-bowled ball. 'I'm not going, Alexander, and that's that. No! The answer is no!'

'I'd like to go,' Lord Christopher said in a small voice.

'Rider!' Lord Alexander expostulated.

'No!' Sandman said. 'I shall happily send the real killer to the gallows, but I'm not witnessing a Newgate circus.' He waved Hughes away. 'I've batted long enough,' he explained, then ran a hand down the face of his bat. 'You have any linseed oil, Alexander?'

'The real killer?' Lord Christopher asked. 'Do you know who that is?'

'I hope to know by this evening,' Sandman said. 'If I send for your carriage, Alexander, then you'll know I've discovered my witness. If I don't? Alas.'

'Witness?' Lord Christopher asked.

'If Rider's going to be obdurate,' Lord Alexander said to Lord Christopher, 'then perhaps you should join me for the Keeper's devilled kidneys on Monday?' He fumbled with his tinder box as he tried to light a new pipe. 'I was thinking that you really ought to join the club here, Rider. We need members.'

'I can imagine you do. Who'd join a club that plays on an imitation of an alpine meadow?'

'A perfectly good pitch,' Lord Alexander said querulously.

'Witness?' Lord Christopher broke in to ask again.

'I trust you'll send for the carriage!' Lord Alexander boomed. 'I want to see that bloody man Sidmouth confounded. Make him grant a pardon, Rider. I shall await your summons at the Wheatsheaf.'

'I'll wait with you,' Lord Christopher said, and was rewarded by a flicker of annoyance on Lord Alexander's face. Sandman, who saw the same flicker, knew that Lord Alexander did not want a rival for Sally's attention, but Lord Christopher must have taken it as an insult for his face fell.

Lord Alexander gazed at the three groundsmen, who were still leaning on their scythes and discussing Sandman's ball that had blasted through them like a roundshot. 'I have always thought,' Lord Alexander said, 'that there is a fortune to be made by a man who can invent a device for the cutting of grass.'