Shattered Dreams (33 page)

Tilly
flopped onto the lawn beside Suzanna and Zack, and shook her head
in disgust at the grotesquely charred interior of the kitchen that
was visible through the kitchen doorway. Cloying smoke still hung
in the air, and clung to their clothing, and them.

She
glanced across the lawn at Dandridge and Cruickshank, who had been
forced to sit back to back, several feet away from each other,
about half way up the garden. They had been joined by Mrs
Dandridge, who had also been tied up and had been made to sit with
her back to the house too. The three of them were being guarded
fiercely by Marcus, and Joseph.

“
I am going to take a look inside,” Harry announced as he
squatted down before her. “Are you alright?”

Tilly
nodded and smiled at him. “I am fine,” she whispered.

“
Good. Stay right where you are.” He nodded to the captives
several feet behind her. “They can’t hurt you now,” he
declared.

Satisfaction rang clearly in his voice, and was accompanied
by a rather satisfied gleam in his eye that made her smile
widen.

“
I won’t be long,” he promised, and followed Barnaby into the
house to take a look at the state it was in.

The
upper floor joists were badly damaged, and the rooms directly above
the kitchen were clearly unstable. The kitchen was destroyed
completely while nearly all of the downstairs rooms had been
rendered uninhabitable because of the thick layer of soot that
covered all of the surfaces, and the heavy odour of smoke that hung
in the air.

Harry
stood in the hallway and studied the mess.

“
We were lucky to get out,” Barnaby growled.

“
It’s desperate, isn’t it?”

Barnaby
looked at Harry’s thoughtful frown. “How do you mean?”

“
I can’t help but wonder what they are being paid if they
would actually torch a house to get their hands on two young women,
and a boy. Why those three? Why are they so determined?” He stared
blankly into the sitting room while his mind raced with questions
he needed to ask Dandridge.

“
It’s a lot of trouble to go to, isn’t it?”

“
Most criminals would have accepted defeat by now, and slunk
off to hide somewhere. Especially since most of the wardens in the
poor house are behind bars now. The fact that the Dandridges’ just
keep coming for them means that they were either being held over a
barrel by someone, or there is far too much money on offer for them
to ignore.”

“
There is the matter of evidence though, Harry,” Barnaby
reasoned. “By setting fire to the house they can force everyone
outside, and keep their attention diverted by getting their
captives back while the house, which contains the evidence, is
gradually destroyed.”

“
God, the devious bastards,” Harry snorted in
disgust.

“
What are we missing?” Barnaby asked with a frown.

Harry
was already ahead of him though.

“
There is more to this than meets the eye,” he mused. “I mean,
if Tilly, Suzanna and Zack are so valuable, and the Dandridges’
knew that they had this money coming from trading them, why were
they stealing the housekeeping money and ornaments from
me?”

“
The woman,” Barnaby snorted in disgust.

“
We need to find out who she is, what their connection is, and
where to find her,” Harry growled and shared a look with Barnaby
before he hurried out of the house.

“
What do you want to do with these two?” Marcus growled as
Harry approached.

“
Bring him around the front. We need to question
him.”

“
I am telling you nothing,” Dandridge snarled.

“
You will do as you are bloody told,” Harry growled. “Or you
will go to prison and never see daylight again.”

Dandridge lapsed into silence, and was all but dragged
several feet away from his co-conspirators. Once there, he was
forced to sit on the ground to wait to be questioned.

Harry
studied him for several minutes. Although Dandridge’s face was full
of bitter resentment and even anger, fear was visible in the
shadows of his eyes and emphasised by the deep, worried frown that
marred his brow.

“
Stepney Mallett is your destination. Who is your contact?” He
growled, but knew from the look in Dandridge’s eyes that the man
wasn’t going to tell them anything willingly just yet.

“
You do know that people smuggling can result in death by
hanging, don’t you?” Barnaby lied blandly. He had no idea whether
it was or not, but Dandridge didn’t need to know that. He watched
the man’s eyes widen in alarm for a second before all trace of
emotion vanished, and was replaced with wariness.

“
Kidnapping, false imprisonment, theft, mugging, arson, people
trading,” Harry reported. “The list is endless, Dandridge. Someone
would think that you were either an extremely hardened criminal, or
someone had incriminating evidence on you, and was blackmailing you
into it.”

He knew
from the way that Dandridge’s eyes widened that he had hit the nail
on the head, and it was immensely satisfying to know that he had
the advantage.

Harry
turned to Joseph. “Would you go to Battlington to fetch the
jailer’s cart?”

“
It will be pleasure,” Joseph replied with a firm nod, and
hurried off to saddle his horse.

Harry
turned his attention back to the Dandridges’. “Where is
she?”

Dandridge stared at him for a minute. “She is there,” he
growled, and nodded toward Tilly.

“
No. Where is your boss? We know she lives in the big house
across town. Where is she?”

Dandridge studied him calculatingly for several moments. “If
I tell you what I know, do I get let off some of it? For helping
you, like?”

Harry
slowly shook his head and pursed his lips. “Afraid not. You have
kidnapped, taken part in falsely imprisoning many people, who were
then sold on like chattel. Nobody would ever consider letting you
off any of it. However, if you tell me what her real name is, and
where to find her, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are
not the only one in jail. She will be serving a longer sentence
than you.”

“
Who are you?” Dandridge demanded with a scowl. “You are no
nabob. I know you work for the government, but doing what? Who are
you to question me like this? You are not the magistrate round
here.”

“
No, I am not. I work for His Majesty’s Government. That is
all you need to know, Dandridge,” Harry drawled carefully. “Now,
who is she? I don’t think that she is really called Mrs
Bolsworthy.”

Dandridge stared thoughtfully at him. His gaze ran over the
assorted people in the garden, and he seemed to realise that the
men were more than just magistrate’s men. The men Harry called
friends had a commanding air of almost arrogant authority about
them that was more than a little worrying.

“
Mavis Johnson,” Mrs Dandridge snapped suddenly. “Her bloody
name is Mavis Johnson. He won’t tell you because he is sleeping
with her. But I have no such affiliation to that damned woman. She
has ruined my life. I owe her nothing.”

“
Shut up,” Dandridge growled.

“
Shut up yourself,” Mrs Dandridge snarled.

Harry
turned his attention to Dandridge’s suddenly talkative wife. “What
does she have over you? Is it the money, or has she caught you with
your hand in one of her accounts books?”

Mrs
Dandridge started at him in shock and Harry immediately pounced,
and took advantage of her stunned surprise.

“
Oh, I know all about your little scheme. I know that you have
helped yourselves to ornaments from around the house and pawned
them. I also know that you have altered the figures in the accounts
ledgers. Once you have another job lined up somewhere else, you
help yourself to the coinage that is available, steal the most
expensive ornaments you can pawn, and then vanish. By the time
anyone does discover your crimes, you are already long gone and are
never to be seen or heard from again. It is ingenious really
because, over the course of a couple of years, you could help
yourselves to as much as fifty pounds and, unless someone got wind
of what you were up to and studied the accounts books from the very
start, nobody would be any the wiser.” Harry sighed and shook his
head “It takes guts. I will grant you that. It is also incredibly
risky because you had to rely upon your employer not noticing the
changes. A pound here and there, amended in the book, minus a pound
out of the safe, or the housekeeping funds. It’s all cut and dried,
and really difficult to prove as theft. Unfortunately for you, when
you were in your last employment, you got a little greedy, didn’t
you? You couldn’t help yourselves, and just had to take more than
you should have. You were also clumsy doing it though, because you
didn’t realise that the figures you put into the accounts book
didn’t match the amount you took out of the house before you
left.”

“
Do you work for her?” Mrs Dandridge asked with a
frown.

Harry
shook his head but didn’t expand.

Mrs
Dandridge stared at him for several long minutes.

“
I think you had better explain,” Harry murmured
darkly.

Mrs
Dandridge considered him for a moment, then threw a look at her
husband, but made no attempt to deny that was what they had done.
She heaved a sigh.

“
We took jobs with her, Johnson, about five years ago.” Her
voice was low and almost monotone as she spoke, as though her mind
was buried deep in the past. “Everything was fine to begin with. I
enjoyed it there. Then
he
started to gamble, but he lost more than he won.
We had to take a bit out of the housekeeping to cover his debts,
but didn’t have enough. As the butler, he had access to the study
and, one day, saw the accounts books open on the desk. He took a
couple of pounds out of the tin, amended the figures in the book
and left. Nobody suspected a thing. We should have left it at that,
but he wouldn’t stop gambling. He took a bit more about a month
later, and a bit more after that. It soon mounted up. I kept
telling him to stop, but he refused to listen to me. Johnson, our
employer at the time, must have cottoned on somehow and started to
keep an eye on him. He didn’t realise, and got caught with his hand
in the tin.”

“
So she threatened you with arrest.”

“
She asked us to do a job for her. She said she would turn a
blind eye to our theft if we did the job, but we wouldn’t get paid
for it. If we didn’t agree, she said she would make sure that we
never worked anywhere again because she would tell the magistrate
and ensure that we were arrested for our crimes. We had no choice
but to agree. She told us to make sure that a girl who had arrived
in town had her bags stolen. Johnson said she didn’t care how it
happened; just that we were to take the bags and make sure that
they were never found.”

“
Was this is in Tooting Mallow?” Barnaby asked with a
frown.

“
No, it was in Hipton in Somerset.”

“
You were working for Johnson then?”

Mrs
Dandridge nodded. “Johnson was always a bit odd. She used to
disappear for days on end, and came and went at all hours of the
night. She entertained men frequently; one man in particular.” She
glanced over at her husband. “Him too; when he wasn’t too drunk and
could manage it.”

Barnaby
shifted his weight. “So what happened to the girl who had her
things stolen?”

“
She was left destitute and had to go to the poor house. To
begin with, we had no idea what had happened to her. She just
vanished from the village. We assumed that she had found her way
home and didn’t think too much of it. Then, about a month later,
another girl arrived. We were told to do the same thing. I didn’t
like it. If we got caught, we would have been arrested for stealing
but, before the girl could report it, she vanished too. I told him
we had to stop but he was too busy tupping Johnson to listen to
me.”

“
You made a mistake in Cornwall,” Harry growled, and watched
her eyes widen.

“
How did you know we lived in Cornwall?”

“
We know all about you,” Harry replied. “I was sent here to
gather the evidence of your stealing from your employers.
Unfortunately for you, an inventory of the house was taken before
you arrived. The inventory that was taken only a couple of days
ago, unsurprisingly, doesn’t match the list of contents in the
house as of yesterday. I have found the pawn shop you used, and we
have managed to buy back the items you stole. Your description was
given to me by the pawn shop owner.” Harry sighed and shook his
head. “It seems a lot to do for just a few pounds. What has she got
over you to lure you to continue, not only to steal, but to force
people to go to a poor house, for God’s sake?”

“
We can’t work anywhere else. She has said she will write to
anyone else we go to work for and make sure that they are aware of
our thieving. Besides, him and Cruickshank have been sleeping with
her. They won’t leave. She has got those idiots to do more and more
for her over the last six months or so. They just won’t stop doing
whatever she asks.”