The Sudbury School Murders

The Sudbury School Murders

by Ashley Gardner

Book 4 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries

The Sudbury School Murders

Copyright 2005 and 2011 by Jennifer Ashley (Ashley
Gardner)

All rights reserved.

Excerpt from
The Necklace Affair
copyright
2011 by Jennifer Ashley

Published 2011 by Jennifer Ashley (Ashley
Gardner)

www.gardnermysteries.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's
imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.

* * * * *

Chapter One

"And I want it stopped," Everard Rutledge
growled.

One week after my arrival at the Sudbury
School in March of 1817, Rutledge faced me over his desk in his
private study.

The headmaster had a large, flat face, a
bulbous nose, and short graying hair that looked as though
perpetually whipped by high wind. His coat hung untidily on his
large frame, his ivory waistcoat was rumpled, his yellowing cravat
twisted. The effect was as though a bull had climbed into an
expensive suit and then gone about its business.

He had just told me a story of vicious pranks
that had been perpetrated in the school--a chandelier in the dining
hall coming down, a fire in the maids' attic, threatening letters
written in blood, and three boys falling ill due to poisoned
port.

"Not nice," I remarked. "Worse than the usual
pranks boys play on each other."

"Exactly," Rutledge barked. "What do you
intend to do about it, eh?"

I looked at him in surprise. I had not
thought discovering pranksters would be in the sphere of the
secretary's duties, but Rutledge glared at me as though waiting for
me to produce the name of the culprit then and there.

"What would you have me do?" I asked him.

"Well, damn it, man, is this not why you are
here? Grenville told me you were a master at poking your nose into
things that did not concern you."

"I do hope Grenville did not put it quite
like that," I said mildly.

Rutledge scowled. "He neglected to tell me
how impertinent you are. I cannot imagine you made a very good
soldier."

"My commander would agree with you," I said.
Colonel Brandon, once my closest friend, had often lectured me
about my tendency to disobey orders and tell my superiors what I
thought of them.

"But please continue about the problem," I
said, my curiosity piqued in spite of myself. "If you wish me to
discover which boys are responsible, I will need as much
information as I can obtain."

"You will do it, then?"

I wished I had been asked, rather than simply
expected. Lucius Grenville had much to answer for. "I admit
interest," I said. "That these tricks have been perpetrated for
three months without anyone being the wiser is intriguing. Someone
has been uncommonly clever."

"Uncommonly indecent," Rutledge snarled.
"When I put my hands on him-- "

I knew the rest. Rutledge, I had learned in
the week since my arrival, believed in strict and severe
discipline. This was not unusual for a school's headmaster, but
Rutledge seemed to enjoy meting out punishment more than did most
sergeants in the King's army.

Rutledge's harsh methods so far had produced
no result. I could see that the students here feared Rutledge but
did not respect him.

He leaned across his desk. "I do not think
you grasp the seriousness of the situation, Lacey. The sons of the
wealthiest men in England attend the Sudbury School. Their money
could buy you, and even Grenville, a dozen times over. I do not
wish for fathers to become unhappy at their sons' complaints. Do
you understand?"

"I understand well enough."

The Sudbury School did not house the sons of
lords and statesmen; rather, their fathers were nabobs and
merchants and men prominent in the City. They were the merchant
class, the middle class, the sons of men who had started with
nothing and gained fortune with the sweat of their brows. Boys
finished Sudbury School, went to the City to add to their father's
fortunes, and in turn sent their own sons here.

Rutledge did not care a fig about money,
personally. The unkempt manner of his clothes, his obliviousness to
the comfort of his study, his evenhandedness in dealing out
punishment to the boys, told me this. Rutledge would be as much at
home in Carleton House as in a hovel--in other words, he'd never
notice.

What Rutledge cared about was the Sudbury
School. His form of honor, if you will. Rutledge was gentleman
born, had attended Eton with Grenville. But he'd stuck his claws
into this school for bankers' sons, and by God he intended it to be
a success. Its reputation was his reputation.

Rutledge went on, "I know that you yourself
were the victim of a prank, Captain, though you chose not to report
it. Sutcliff, my prefect, had to tell me. What were you thinking,
man?"

Bartholomew a few nights ago had thrown back
my bedding to reveal a grass snake, half-suffocated on the
featherbed. I had lifted it between my fingers and laid it gently
in the branches of the tree outside my window.

I said, "I was thinking it was harmless and
did not need to be brought to your attention."

"Harmless?" Rutledge almost shouted. "And
why, pray, did you believe it harmless?"

I half smiled. "I assumed a few boys were
simply testing out the new man. To see whether I fussed or
laughed."

Rutledge's expression told me that levity had
been the incorrect response. "You should have reported it to me at
once, and the boys found and punished. You encourage their
behavior."

I held my temper with effort. "I doubt it
connects to the more serious pranks."

"How can you know that?"

"Poison in port and fires in servants rooms
are considerably more dangerous than one bewildered grass
snake."

Rutledge's annoyed expression told me he did
not agree. "So the question remains, Captain . . . what do you
intend to do about it?"

His belligerence was ruining a fine spring
day. I had hoped to escape for a walk after my duties, but Rutledge
had ordered me to stay. Then he'd laid aside his papers, rested his
fists on his desk, and told me all about the pranks.

"I will question the boys," I told him. "They
likely know who is involved but are reluctant to speak. Even if
they do not know, they might be able to point to something. I will
speak to the prefects of both houses, as well. They are much closer
to the boys than you or even the tutors can be."

Rutledge peered at me in disappointment. "I
expected more from you, the way Grenville boasted. The students
have already been questioned. I had them all thrashed, but to no
avail. You will get nowhere with that line of thinking."

"The students might be more willing to speak
to a sympathetic stranger than their headmaster or even a prefect,"
I pointed out. "Servants, too, see things, hear things. I shall
have my man talk with them."

Rutledge dismissed this with a wave of his
hand. "Useless. They will not tell you, even if they do know."

I grew annoyed. "Did you expect me to pull
the solution out of the air? I must begin somewhere."

"Yes, yes, very well. But I expect you to
tell me everything. Everything, Lacey."

I did not promise. I'd tell him what he
needed to know, nothing more. I had learned in my life that
problems were often more complex than they seemed, and most people
did not want to know the entire truth. Rutledge was a man who saw
everything in black and white. Subtle complexities would be beyond
him.

He dismissed me then, curtly. Without regret,
I left the warm and comfortable room for the cold hall.

The case intrigued me, but Rutledge had not
endeared himself to me. I was also put out with Grenville and
intended to write to him so, first for not telling me that my
employment here was simply a means for solving a puzzle, and second
for not warning me that Rutledge was such a boor.

A walk in the brisk March air, I thought,
would do me good.

It was late afternoon, and boys and tutors
spilled through the double doors to change their clothes for chapel
or dinner or more studies. There were thirty boys in this house,
which was called the Head Master's house. I had not yet met all the
students, but I had started to recognize a few. Ramsay was a
towheaded boy of about thirteen who always looked apprehensive.
Timson, the same age, had a roguish look, and it pained me to
realize that he reminded me of myself at that age. Frederick
Sutcliff, the prefect, was tall, lanky, older than the other
students, and generally despised. He was full of himself and not
above a little harsh discipline that he did not report to Rutledge.
His father was also one of the wealthiest men in England.

The Classics tutor, Simon Fletcher, gave me a
nod. He did not live in this house, but in the one opposite, called
Fairleigh. Fletcher liked a quiet pint in the village tavern, and
I'd met him there on more than one evening. The mathematics tutor,
Tunbridge, was lecturing his star pupil as usual, a spindly youth
of sixteen with a heavy brow.

The lads stared at me as I made my way down
the stairs and out of the house. They always stared because I was a
tall, broad-shouldered man obviously wounded in the war, and also
because they'd heard I'd refused to toady to Rutledge. This had
raised me to a certain admired status.

Some of the boys nodded and said a polite,
"Captain." Most of the others simply watched.

Cool damp air awaited me outside in the quad,
and I breathed it in relief. Rutledge's study was comfortable
enough, but his moods fouled the air.

The setting of the Sudbury School was fairly
peaceful. The houses had been built in the time of Henry VIII. They
had dark, narrow staircases and galleries that creaked, small
windows, and crumbling plaster. But the estate had been owned by a
family of vast fortune, who were able to fortify the houses and
modernize them as time went on without marring their beauty.

The Head Master's house comprised the north
and east sides of the quad, and Fairleigh, named for one of the
founders of the school, the west side. The south building housed a
large hall and two smaller ones for lectures, tiny classrooms, a
common dining hall for the boys, and a more formal dining room, in
which Rutledge hosted visitors to the school.

I left the quad through the gate and began
walking to the stables. The Berkshire countryside certainly smelled
cleaner than London's grime-filled streets. Here was the fragrance
of new grass, wet earth, and the faint musty odor that came from
the quiet canal that flowed past the school.

Rutledge at least did not mind me taking a
horse every morning and riding about the green swards or along the
towpath beside the canal. Rutledge was mad for sport and approved
of men who liked to ride. I was still a cavalryman at heart and was
glad to have the opportunity to ride regularly again.

I reflected as I walked that I had come to
Berkshire to find peace, and so far, it had eluded me. But perhaps
peace was not in a place but within one's self. In that case, I
might never find it. There was little at peace inside Gabriel
Lacey.

In the stable yard, I met Sebastian, a young
Romany who had been taken on by the head groom to assist him. He
was cleaning tack and not looking happy about it. Sebastian was
excellent with horses, and he and I had become friends of a sort. I
had been surprised at first to discover that Rutledge allowed a
Romany to work in his stables, but Sebastian told me Rutledge had
not known about it until after the fact. Sebastian had proved handy
enough--and came cheap--and Rutledge had decided to look the other
way.

"Good afternoon," I said genially to
Sebastian.

He gave me a nod. The other stable hands
ignored me. Two leaned on rakes and chatted, one sat on a crate
smoking a pipe while he mended a bridle.

Sebastian was usually effusive, but today, he
frowned at the saddle he polished. "Did you want a horse, Captain?"
he asked in his melodious voice.

"No. I'm out for a short stroll, that's all.
Is everything well with you?"

"Yes."

It was not, I could see, but Sebastian closed
his mouth in a tight line. He was about twenty, not much older than
the oldest boys at the school. The pupils generally liked him,
because he was good-natured, kind, and knew everything there was to
know about horses.