A THREAT IN THE NIGHT

A rain storm, and things change for the worse...

THE COACHMAN'S HOLIDAY - 9

A THREAT IN THE NIGHT

Sometimes, and even in Skegness, it rains, though the publicists for that delightful town might deny it. Out of the blue and suddenly, like squalls that creep in from the darkening oceans, a downpour can arrive unheralded and unwanted.

And just as the rather tacky cabaret was finishing and the scoffing and snorting crowds were leaving, some chuntering about how can it be that so many people are prepared to waste so much time at such a high cost, and others merely smiling at what might have been, but wasn’t, just then it was that the heavens opened.

Everyone made instantly for the other main entertainment at the Maison de l’Amour, a room of entertainments of a more risky nature in which the wits of the visitors were challenged and usually found wanting. There were tables at which games were played out, many of them card games in which you paid a penny to find the lady (the Queen, maybe, of Hearts) and were found wanting, or others from a randomly shuffled hand (which was nothing like randomly shuffled despite appearances) in which you paid a penny to beat the hand of the dealer, over 21 being lost. Pontoon, it was called, and for Dave Wasp it was a bridge too far. He could see the mischief of the dealers and wanted nothing to do with it.

But it was in the gaming room that he became reunited with his daughter Jane, who was still in the company of Annie Anon who, to his surprise, was looking younger and fresher than she had since the holiday break had begun, and he put it down to the fact that she may well have encroached on the vast wealth in gold coins that had been concealed in the dress that had started to fall apart when it got wet with sea water, and with it found a better diet than the one she was used to. The gold coins were hers: the gypsy woman who had given it to her had died soon after and anyway not even she probably knew what the weights that held the hem to the ground in high winds were made of. But there was no doubt about it: they were sovereigns, and sovereigns were pure gold.

“Ah,” said Dave to his daughter, “I thought I’d lost you. Where did you get to?”

“Mistress Anon wished to have a word with me,” replied Jane with typical honesty, “and we went outside where we might be able to hear each other speak.”

“That’s all right then,” he replied, “but I was getting worried.”

“There was just too much silly noise in there, what with so-called entertainers shouting their nonsense” responded Jane, “and it was a waste of time trying to make something of it. And some of those half-naked dancers looked as if they could do with a bath!”

“I put it down to being make-up, but you could be right,” responded Dave. “I thought I smelt the odd armpit as it drifted past...”

Annie’s two sons spotted them from across the room and hollered them, causing a minor disruption to some of the gaming tables where money was being lost by punters and won by croupiers who spent a great deal of their time rubbing their hands together.

“Ahoy there, Driver!” called Tom in his most stentorian voice.

“Master Wasp!” added Dick, not to be outdone by his brother.

“We have been spying,” said Tom in a quieter voice when the two groups came together.

“It’s because of the rain,” added Dick, “we sought shelter from the vicious downpour and ended up in a stable. And that woman, the one who calls herself Countess Hope came sliding in, all feathers and false eyelashes and bosoms. Waiting for her, and with a deadly blade in his hand, was a pirate. At least he looked like a pirate, though in truth neither of us has ever seen a real pirate in our lives.”

“But he was a scoundrel: there can be no doubt about that, and when the Countess addressed him, she called him Master Blacknave.” put in Tom.

“And a black nave he was,” added Dick, “I could tell by the cut of his jib that there are few blacker hearts in all of Christendom than that which beats in his breast!”

“You mean, he had daubed himself with soot as a disguise?” asked Jane, clearly innocent of reprehensible people.

“Or tar?” added Annie.

“No, bless you mother!” laughed Tom, “his flesh, where it wasn’t soiled with sweat and dust and the filth of the world, was white and, no doubt pure. It may well have been soiled. But it was his heart that was black with evil, there can be no doubt about that!”

“But colour isn’t the issue,” put in Dick irritably, “it was the nature of their conversation that was blackest, for he was offering coin to the Countess...”

“...Not that he called her countess, but referred to her as Mistress Smallthief when he used her name at all!” said Tom, “Mistress Smallthief, he said, I have coin for that six horses you are stabling, and the wonderful coach that the driver has so carefully cleaned and polished for us. You take the coin and we take the coach and six, and we take them at dawn!” said Tom.

“Master Blacknave, she said with a smile on her face, and that face becomes unsmiling, twisted and gurning like a devil’s w***e, when she is contemplating evil things, Master Blacknave, it is a deal! I will ensure that those travelling in that coach will sleep well after dawn, and by the time you are well gone they will waken and find themselves without a means to go home...” quoted Dick. “And then you can charge them real coin for their keep!”

“And that will be us!” almost wept Tom. “We will be cast out, and then where will we be? On the streets, sir, on the streets and without a horse between us! And I have spent the bigger part of my cash at the gaming tables and the bar, which is the most expensive by far that I have come upon in all my drinking life.”

“We’ll have to get away, dad,” said Jane, her face suddenly white, for she was inexperienced in the wiles of some of the evil folk who plague our world. Annie Anon, on the other hand, had previously had dealings with the witch Treesa Mayhem, and knew evil when she saw it, and was beginning to understand how to deal with it.

“It is short of midnight still,” she said in a hiss, “and our fellow travellers, of whom little has been said thus far, will need to be rounded up and we must be away as soon as soon. You, driver David Wasp, must prepare your horses whilst I and the young and innocent Jane will find our fellows, pack our belongings and meet you at the front entrance as soon as maybe, but, shall we say, by the hour of one in the morning at the latest! And then we must fly like the wind and take a different route back home, for they will be aware of the route we came by and will expect us to return that way!”

“Right,” said Dave, “I can’t fault that scheme! Let’s go about our business, but quietly. “It must not be suspected for one moment that we are making a hasty get-away!”

Then, like the conspirators they never meant to be, the little group dispersed, and driver Wasp made his way furtively to the stables where he was greeted by six steeds who had come to love him as if he was their own father.

Meanwhile Annie had something of her own to do as she made her way, like a shadow, to the changing room where she suspected the Maison de l’Amour’s evil owner might be.

She had something to do to that woman. Justice to put right. A not-so-small thief to be neutralised.

© Peter Rogerson 31.05.18