The Royal Scamp by Joan Smith

age. Fletcher’s is a genuine white mare. It certainly looks like he’s trying to deflect suspicion from hisself. As to Meecham’s nag, if it’s the dark horse stabled here he uses when he’s being Captain Johnnie, what would he need your old stable for?”
    “Perhaps he has two mounts,”she invented. “Last night there were two men.”
    Clifford fixed her with a piercing brown eye. “Do ye really think Captain Johnnie’s such a fiat, he’d ride his working horse into public, bold as brass? Divil a bit of it.”
    She played her ace. “Mr. Meecham used a ladder to enter his room the night the Higginses were robbed,”she said, and explained the time element.
    “That is odd,”he admitted. “I’ll quiz him on that score. What is odder is that young Meecham was at pains to ask around who Ramsay is, and when he found out he was the prime citizen in the countryside, he suddenly decides he was at school with his cousin.”
    Esther came to quick attention. “Did he, indeed? I hadn’t heard it. But he could hardly ‘decide’such a thing, Mr. Clifford,”she pointed out reluctantly. “He would need names, times—information.”
    “Which he was at pains to get in the tavern that same night and went strutting out to meet Ramsay next morning when he stopped by the inn. Oh, he’s a cunning enough rogue, Mr. Meecham,”he finished.
    Seeing her runner was being more reasonable, Esther tried a new tack. “You realize Mr. Meecham was in the army, like Captain Johnnie,”she said.
    “I do. Quite a hero he was. I’ve checked that out.”
    “You haven’t had time,”Esther said swiftly.
    Clifford smiled an oily smile. “Bow Street is awake on all suits, miss. We had half a dozen lads down here this morning. I sent one of them off to check war records. Captain Meecham was in the Peninsula with Beau Douro, right enough. A fine job he did, too, by all accounts. Near got his left arm blown off, but it didn’t stop him. Ah, I do like a military man,”Clifford finished, sighing in admiration. “If I was twenty years younger, I’d have been in the Peninsula myself, giving Beau a hand.”
    Officer Clifford rose and strutted to the door, a shabby parody of a hero. “As to your Fletcher, since you’re so mighty close to him, Miss Lowden, you might fish around and see if you can find out who and what he really is. Not that he’ll tell you, but a clever lady like yourself might pick up on something.”The words “clever lady”were delivered with an ironic smile.
    “Mr. Fletcher is ex-navy, Mr. Clifford.”
    “The Admiralty is slower than the army to cough up their secrets. I haven’t verified him yet. Not that he couldn’t borrow a real sailor’s name.”
    “The same applies to Meecham.”
    “There’s no saying the Scamp was a military lad at all. There’s always a hundred rumors about such creatures. He don’t wear scarlet regimentals, and if he did, it wouldn’t necessarily prove anything but he visited a costume store. Facts, Miss Lowden. That’s what I’m after. Facts, not rumors. How did the Scamp learn that gold shipment was being made, for example? There’s a puzzler.”Mr. Clifford bowed and left the room, muttering into his collar.
    Esther was so disgusted with him, she didn’t know whether to laugh or shout. To think the capture of Captain Johnnie was in the hands of a fool like that was enough to sink her spirits. She wanted time to think in private and sent off for tea to soothe her addled nerves.
    How did Meecham discover the gold shipment was being made if it was a guarded secret? It must have been his accomplice, someone from London, who ferreted that out. I was talking to Sir Clarence Fulbright at the finance minister’s department about Paul. Good God! Had Joshua learned of the shipment yesterday and inadvertently let it slip out to Meecham? He said, when he left her, that he was going to see Meecham. She must ask Joshua about that.
    Over the second cup of tea her thoughts took a