Jane and the Genius of the Place: Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery by Stephanie Barron

chaise, Collingforth, and fail to keep your appointment?”
    “I did nothing of the kind. I'm a respectable married man.”
    Someone in the crowd guffawed loudly, and Collingforth cast a bloodshot gaze over the assembled faces. “I'll demand satisfaction of the next man who offers disrespect.”
    “What about Mrs. Grey?” someone called. “You call what you did to her Respect? Where's her habit, Collingforth? You keep it to give to your wife?”
    “Silence!” Neddie shouted, in a tone I had never before heard him employ. “I require a fast horse and rider for Canterbury! There's a gold sovereign for the lad who makes the journey in under an hour!”
    “I'm your man,” cried a fellow in a nankeen coat; one of the stable boys, no doubt.
    “Ride like the wind to the constabulary,” Neddie instructed him, “and send back a party of men. We will require any number. Where is Mrs. Grey's groom or tyger?”
    “Mrs. Grey's tyger!” The cry went up, and was repeated through the swelling ranks; and after an interval, the boy with the bent back was rousted from the stableyard, with the Greys'jockey in tow.
    The tyger stopped short at the sight of his mistress, and gave a strangled cry. Then he looked blindly about the ring of men, his fists clenched; saw Collingforth still pinioned; and rushed at him, flailing and pummelling. “Why'd you want to do it, you coward? Why'd you want to go and kill 'er for? She wanted none o' your kind! You couldn't leave 'er in peace!”
    Neddie grasped the boy's shoulders and pulled him away. “What is your name, boy?”
    “Tom,” he said. “TomJenkins.”
    “Why did your mistress leave you behind?”
    “She asked me to walk La Fleche back home. Crandall, 'ere, was to walk the filly.”
    Very white about the lips, the jockey touched his cap.
    “La Fleche?” Neddie enquired.
    “The black 'un, what she rode in the heat.”
    “I see. And what road did she intend to take?”
    “Why, the road to Wingham, o' course. The Larches liesjust this side o' Wingham.”
    Neddie glanced around him. “Henry! Have you a fresh horse?”
    “Of course.” My brothers had gone mounted to the race grounds well before our party in the barouche, being eager to see the Commodore into his stall, and survey the course. We had joined them some hours later.
    “Then set out immediately along the Wingham road. Mrs. Grey's phaeton must be found, and secured from injury. Ten to one it has been stolen—” He stopped, perplexed. The unspoken question hovered in the air: How had Mrs. Grey come to lie in Collingforth's chaise, quite devoid of her scarlet habit, when we had all observed her to drive out of the grounds a half-hour before? And if she had met with mishap along the road, and her phaeton been stolen—why was her body not lying beneath a hedgerow?
    “I shall send a constable towards Wingham immediately I have one,” Neddie continued, “but until he arrives, Henry, I beg of you, do not stir from The Larches. If you happen upon the phaeton by some lucky chance, remain with it until the constable appears. Now, Tom!”
    “Yes, sir?” The tyger dashed away his tears and endeavoured to stand the straighten
    “Is the black horse in any state for ajog?”
    “As fresh as tho' he never was out, sir.”
    “Very well. You and your colleague—Crandall, is it?— shall bear Mr. Austen company along the Wingham road. If the phaeton is discovered, leave Mr. Austen in custody and proceed to The Larches. Inform the household of what has befallen your mistress. Is that clear?”
    “As glass, sir.”
    “Your master is from home, I presume?”
    “He's in London, like always.”
    “Then a messenger must be sent to him with the news. The housekeeper will look to it.”
    “Like as not she'll send me,” the jockey volunteered. “I usually knows where the master can be found.”
    Tom glanced at his murdered mistress, who lay so still amidst the dust and the singing cicadas. “What about milady?”
    “We shall