Page 32 of Miss Flibbertigibbet and the Barbarian
“Settling the horses,” Young Gillies replied. “We thought you’d want to hear what we found without delay.”
“In that, you’re correct,” Nicholas informed him, glancing around at the keenly anticipatory expressions. He looked back at Young Gillies. “So tell us your news.”
Young Gillies drew himself up. “Well, first off, he’s not in town. We haven’t caught up with him yet, but we did pick up his trail.”
“Don’t tell me he headed for Boston after all?” Dickie incredulously exclaimed.
“No, sir.” Young Gillies shook his head. “After checking around town, we first rode out along the road to the east—toward Boston—and we quickly came across a road gang who were absolutely certain the horse hadn’t been led past them yesterday nor today. It was hard to see how anyone could have got by without them seeing, and they said they were working until dark last night and were back at first light this morning.”
Young Gillies glanced at Nicholas. “We decided that was good enough proof the blackguard hadn’t gone that way, but learning that had taken us barely an hour, so we decided to backtrack toward Aisby and see if we could find any definite sighting to say that the villain had actually come all the way into Grantham. So we went back out along the northeast road.”
“The road we came in on,” Adriana clarified.
Young Gillies nodded. “Yes, that one. We started with the stall just on the edge of town, and the farmwife there said she hadn’t seen The Barbarian go by. She’s forever watching the road for customers, so it seemed she’d have seen if the thief had taken the horse past, but she only stayed until about six o’clock yesterday, so he could have gone past later.”
Dickie was frowning. “That doesn’t fit our thesis. He’d have had to go past her earlier than that.”
“Aye.” Young Gillies ducked his head. “We thought that, too, so we went on and found two other blokes, but although neither had seen the horse, they couldn’t be certain about the times. That brought us to where the lane from Aisby joins the road. It was barely noon, so we thought we’d go on and see if we could find anyone farther up the road, just in case the villain had, after all, gone that way.”
Young Gillies’s round face lit. “And he had! We got as far as a little place called Manthorpe.”
Leaning forward, Adriana nodded. “We know it.”
“And we found two workers trimming a long hedge. They’d been at it these past days, and they—both of them—remembered the man leading the big bay horse going past, heading north.”
“When?” Nicholas asked.
“Yesterday,” Young Gillies replied. “Sometime late afternoon was the best time they could give us.”
“Damn!” Dickie collapsed into a chair by the table. “Despite it making no sense, the blackguard was making for Lincoln all along.”
Nicholas studied Adriana’s, Dickie’s, and Rory’s flummoxed expressions. “You mentioned earlier that, from Aisby, if the thief was heading for Lincoln, it would have been quicker for him to go directly north from the village. How much quicker?”
Dickie’s expression turned calculating. “Six, seven miles?” He glanced at Rory.
Rory nodded. “About that. Much faster to strike north from Aisby.”
Adriana shook her head. “Why on earth did he take the route he did if all along he intended to head for Lincoln?”
Nicholas offered, “I can think of two possible reasons.” When the others looked at him, he explained, “One, the thief isn’t a local, so he didn’t know of the local lanes or, alternatively, didn’t want to risk striking north on lanes he wasn’t sure led to where he wanted to go. That’s one possibility.”
Adriana grimaced. “I suppose that might have been so.”
“The other possibility,” Nicholas continued, “is that the thief used the roundabout route to throw us off the scent. Presumably, he hoped to make us think that he’d headed into Grantham. By doing so, he’s gained an extra day as well as making tracking him that much harder.”
Dickie softly swore, while Adriana’s expression said she wished she could.
Feeling deeply annoyed at having fallen for the villain’s ploy, Addie glanced out of the window. It might be nearly six o’clock, but there was plenty of light. “We’ve lost so much time! We should set off for Lincoln immediately.”
She looked at the others to see all the men frowning.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Nicholas stated.
Dickie scoffed. “We won’t even have any moonlight to help us, so we won’t get far.”
“Only get a few miles farther,” Rory agreed, “and then we’d have to find someplace to stay. And there aren’t that many decent inns along that road. Leastways not where we’d be come nightfall.”
“Exactly.” Dickie’s tone suggested the matter was settled.
