Page 26 of Chasing Shadows
“Then perhaps,” he replied easily, “you might purchase something for a younger friend—or as a neighbourly gift. Christmas comes apace, after all.”
Lydia chuckled, amused by the suggestion, but Mary urged her sisters on. Mr. Denny, with a gallant air, offered his arm.
“Permit me to see you safely to Mrs. Philips’s door,” said he. “I know well that is your destination, and three ladies alone are too pretty a sight to go unattended.”
Accepting his escort with goodwill, the Bennet girls continued toward their aunt’s, leaving the toy-seller behind them. None of them spared a second glance for the shadowed corner of the public house.
***
From the instant Thomas Dobson blurted the word -Ramsgate!– outside the tavern, his life had been forfeit. The man knew he might not even have recognised him, not truly; yet the danger lay not in what he knew but in what he might provoke. A careless word repeated, a memory stirred in the wrong quarter, and all might be undone. Such risks could not be tolerated. Not now. Not when he had finally figured the final piece that afternoon, and it was so near its conclusion.
Thus, he had shadowed Dobson from that moment. All through the afternoon, he kept watch, while the man hawked his toys to curious children in the marketplace and when he later retired for drinks in the evening. He did not lose him from sight but stayed out of his.
Dobson lingered long in the pub by the marketplace, drinking more than was prudent and boasting of his sales to any who would listen. He laughed too loudly, slapped backs too readily, and when at last he staggered out into the night air, it was with the careless gait of a man half-foxed.
He followed. At a careful distance, his tread noiseless upon the frost, he shadowed the tradesman’s uneven progress down the darkened street. No one marked him; no one ever did. He knew the fellow must lodge at the inn on the town’s edge, where all passing tradesmen often found their bed, and so he waited, patient as a hunter, until Dobson took the road leading out.
The lamps grew fewer, the houses sparser. The night deepened, empty of all but their two figures. When at last they reached the stretch where no window overlooked and no cart passed by, he closed the distance in a breath.
In a swift movement, his arm locked tight around Dobson’s throat from behind. The little man gave a startledgasp, tried to claw at the arm that held him, but his struggles weakened quickly. A twist, a brutal tightening, and the sound died in his throat. Within moments, the body sagged in his grip, lifeless.
He lowered him silently to the ground. He searched him quicker than he had killed him. The purse was there, heavy with coin. He considered it a welcome replenishment for the money he had spent on months of preparation. He shouldered the bag of toys, already weighing how best to sink them in the river before dawn. A few stones, and they would vanish into the mud forever. That, in his opinion, was how best to stage a robbery anyone would believe. Taking the money only could be questioned, but when the wares were gone as well, surely all would conclude it had been robbery. That would draw less attention from anyone.
For a moment he stood over the crumpled form, as though to be certain the last faint wisp of breath had vanished into the cold night air. This death had not been intended. Dobson was nothing. He could not even say whether he had ever truly seen the man before, or if perchance he had and simply kept no memory of his face. Yet Dobson’s almost-recognition was risk enough, and risks could not be tolerated. Not now. Not when everything was prepared.
Drawing his cloak close, he resumed his measured pace upon the empty road, as though merely another traveller bound for home. Should anyone later see him, he was certain no question would be raised. Yet, cautious still, he turned aside into another route, one he knew would prove as deserted as the path by which he had followed Dobson. If memory served him, it was also a faster route to the river.
A smile touched his lips as he murmured into the darkness, scarcely above the whisper of the wind.
“One more week,” he said. “One more week, and it will all be over.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Five murders now! It is too much, Mr. Bennet, far too much!” cried Mrs. Bennet, wringing her hands.
News of a tradesman robbed and killed might ordinarily have been confined to whispers in shadowed corners, yet this time it swept through Meryton like wildfire. Most declared it nothing more than a robbery, though some muttered darkly that it must be the work of the same killer still at large. And who could blame them? At present, were a bird to fall dead from the sky in Meryton, there were those who would lay the blame on the killer at large.
“They are saying it was a robbery,” Mr. Bennet observed drily. He had just returned from a call upon Sir William Lucas, where the news was already the chief topic, and was now recounting it to his wife. “Yet the timing is most questionable, for such occurrences are scarce known in Meryton.”
The Bennet sisters, who had been gathered in the music room, hurried in at their mother’s shrill exclamation, arriving just in time to hear the last of their father’s remark.
“The poor fellow was said to be a toy seller,” Mr. Bennet continued, “newly come to Meryton, lodging at the Crown and Horn on the outskirts.”
“What happened to him, Papa?” Jane asked. “Mama only shouted.”
“There has been another murder,” Mrs. Bennet wailed. “It must be the same killer!”
“I said it could be a robbery,” Mr. Bennet corrected.
Mary frowned, her brow furrowed in recollection. “A toy seller? I hope it was not the very man who pressed us yesterday to buy his wares.”
“If he lodged at the Crown and Horn, then it must be the same man,” Kitty reasoned. “That inn is for passersby, and I had never set eyes on him in Meryton until yesterday. Besides, save for Mr. Martin, who sells his wooden effigies, and the seamstress on Green Street, I know of no other toy-seller in the town.”
“Did he quarrel with Mr. Darcy as well?” Mrs. Bennet demanded. “It seems every soul who dies has had words with that man!”
“Mama—” Elizabeth’s voice was firm. “Mr. Darcy is no killer. Yes, some who argued with him have died, but we all know he did not kill them. At least when Mr. Wickham was slain, Mr. Darcy was with us, protecting me. No—this murderer merely wishes to make him appear guilty.”
“Surely Lizzy is right,” Mr. Bennet said. “If Mr. Darcy killed people for disagreeing with him, then we should be gathering bodies daily, for half the village finds him disagreeable.”
