Chapter 7 #2
Ariana took Mr. Medlock through the back garden and out a gate onto a path that ran behind the houses. Brownlee trailed behind.
How should she introduce the topic that had been consuming her mind? Before she could speak, he did. “Miss Westbrook, my partner Jim Benniston told me you needed to talk to me.”
Best to be forthright and open, for that was who she was. “Mr. Medlock, you must consider me very forward,” she admitted. “I needed to warn you. There is a gentleman, a Mr. Mills, who means to steal from you. I overheard him in conversation with a man who is, I am certain, a smuggler.”
She paused to give Mr. Medlock time to comment. He did not disappoint her. “I hope they did not know you heard them, Miss Westbrook. Such people are dangerous.”
“They did not see me,” she said. “They had their meeting in the bookshop in the village. They sent the proprietor upstairs to look for something, and they must have thought they were alone, but I was out of sight behind some shelves, and heard everything.”
He nodded. “Good. I would not want you to put yourself at risk. What did they say?”
“Mr. Mills watched you yesterday, and he has concluded you found what you were looking for. He means to burgle your rooms as soon as he can find them empty.” Of course, if what Mr. Medlock said in the parlor was true, there would be nothing to find.
But if he had been searching for a particular treasure, he was hardly likely to confess to it in a lady’s parlor with an audience of recent acquaintances.
“Do you wish to go to the inn to check that everything is as it should be?” she added.
“No need,” said Mr. Medlock. “Even if he tried to rob me—even if he found something to steal—I share a room with my business partner, who is currently in that room catching up on some paper work. I have time to show you the diving equipment and to escort you home before I must go back and give Jim a break.”
“Oh good, for I truly do wish to see the bell and the helmet.”
“How did you deduce the other man is a smuggler?” Mr. Medlock asked.
From other people—Mr. Beaumont, for example—such a question might have sounded dismissive, disdainful, or disbelieving. Mr. Medlock seemed to be enquiring out of interest in her evidence.
“He said so, Mr. Medlock. He said ‘If you want passage to the continent and no record, you need a smuggler. And around here, that means me.’ Mr. Mills wanted him to attack your boat, but he refused, because he feared it would draw attention from the excisemen.”
Mr. Medlock raised his eyebrows. “Conclusive,” he commented. They had arrived at a stile. Mr. Medlock helped her over and waited for Brownlee to catch up so he could assist her, too. Arianna wondered how many of the men who had shown her attention would show such courtesy to a maid.
Once Brownlee was safely over the stile, Mr. Medlock offered Arianna his arm again and they continued. On the other side of the field, she could see the rooftops of a few cottages, clustered together on the side of the inlet.
“Mills is off to the continent, is he?” Mr. Medlock commented. “I daresay he has made England too hot for himself. To be honest, I thought he was pursuing you, Miss Westbrook.”
Arianna snorted. “He was pursuing my dowry, and Mama was inclined to let him. It is still his backup plan, but he told the smuggler that he couldn’t stomach the prospective mother-in-law unless he had no other choice.”
She heard a gasp from Brownlee, who had obviously overheard her words. Ah well. If Brownlee repeated them to Mama, so be it. Perhaps Mama would have second thoughts about the horrid man. Unlikely, but possible.
Once they’d crossed another stile, Arianna could see the harbor, where half a dozen boats floated, some of them tied up to one of the long wooden quays, and a couple at anchor further out in the water.
Most of them looked old and battered, but Mr. Medlock pointed to one that looked newer, fresher, and in better repair than the rest. “That is the Cormorant, Miss Westbrook. And the shape on the deck is the diving bell.”
Arianna had met Mr. Medlock’s partner, Mr. Benniston. When they boarded the Cormorant, he introduced her to his other partner, Captain Arkright, and the two gentlemen conducted her all over the ship.
She saw the diving suits, and the copper helmets with their little windows and the weird leather tubes for air.
The diving bell had the same kind of tubes, but bigger.
She asked if she could look inside the bell, but its rim rested on the ground, and when she tried to look through the glass windows near the top, she couldn’t see anything but shadow.
They also showed her the pumps that took the air from the surface to the divers. Arianna tried to move the handle, but was not strong enough.
Then she was permitted to look into the cabins where the gentlemen slept when they were onboard. Mr. Medlock and Mr. Benniston shared, and the captain’s cabin was also their meeting place, with a big table that Mr. Medlock said was for charts and meals.
They passed the door of the cabin were the four divers slept. The sailors, Captain Arkwright said, slung their hammocks behind another door that they also passed. She saw the galley, though, where the meals were prepared.
Then, when they went back up on deck, she discovered the two gentlemen had arranged for a couple of the sailors who were aboard at the time to winch the bell up so she could crouch down and then straighten up inside. It was all so fascinating.