“I believe so, to avoid the revenue men. It would account for the village girls not wanting to come to you, if this business is whispered of in the village.”
“Certainly that is it! I chose girls from the most respectable families I could think of, the very ones who would object, for half the village is in on it, of course. Well, at least we know the worst now.”
“We know nothing, though it seems a plausible conjecture,” deVigne revised.
“And the pixies in the orchard!” Delsie shrieked, then covered her mouth with her fingers as she realized the loudness of her voice. She tiptoed to the door and closed it quietly before returning to the sofa, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “The noises I heard in the orchard-it must have been the smugglers bringing the brandy into the orchard. I heard a horse or horses, or more likely donkeys, and men speaking in low voices. They were hiding brandy in the orchard!”
“You checked the orchard the next morning, did you not? You found nothing amiss there.”
“How can you say so? I found the bag of gold. The smugglers must leave Andrew’s share of the profit there for him to pick up.”
“Seems an odd place to leave it, but, as you found no brandy there, they cannot have been delivering it. They were removing it. It was stored nearby, hidden somewhere presumably.”
“Well then, removing it instead of delivering. It must certainly have been smugglers in any case. I am convinced of it.”
“You are convinced on very little evidence,” deVigne suggested.
“Every detail points to it. The bags of money-so many of them and all in the same form-payment for the various shipments. The noises in the orchard, the girls not coming to me, the brandy in the cellar, Andrew’s connection with the shipyards.”
“I grant you it sounds likely, and I hope you may be right.”
She stared. “You hope my husband was a smuggler? Thank you very much. It is an admirable addition to his other sterling qualities-his drunkenness, his insolvency, his dying within hours of my marrying him.”
“Don’t pretend you object to that last item!” he quizzed. “But I had a reason for hoping we have solved this mystery. If that was it, the business is finished. With Andrew dead, someone else will take it over, and you shan’t be bothered again. You have heard the last of the pixies in the garden. The lot delivered the night you moved to the Cottage must have been the one in progress when he died. It would take a few days, I suppose, for a ship to go to France and return, and wait its chance to unload safely. The shipment was already begun, and it was completed the night you arrived. The bag of money you found in the orchard was Andrew’s share of the profit.”
“I won’t keep money obtained in such a way.”
“Devote it to your favorite charity-underpaid schoolteachers,” he suggested.
“On the theory that charity begins at home, you are implying I ought to keep it?” He nodded his head. “I shan’t keep a penny.”
“I am less scrupulous. I intend to enjoy every drop of the illicit stuff you so kindly give me. Shall we have a look around the orchard and see if we can find where they have been hiding it? If we discover some sign, we can take it for confirmation that this web of suppositions we have been fabricating is true.”
“A good idea. We’ll look for more gold too.”
“A waste of time, as you mean to give it away,” he pointed out.
She got her pelisse and bonnet, and they went to investigate the orchard for a possible place of concealment. They found no further bags of gold, nor any spot that appeared suitable for hiding some considerable quantity of brandy. “They were surely not so brazen as to leave it sitting under the trees, in plain sight,” Delsie said uncertainly.
“I cannot think so. The Cottage is too close to the road. They usually use a much better hiding place-an abandoned building, an old barn, or an excavation where some building has burned down-something that offers a good hiding place. They would never stand it in a field and leave it. The deliveries might be a few nights in the doing, and to leave it exposed to the naked eye-no. That cannot be it.”
“Perhaps they took it through the orchard to the fields beyond,” Delsie mentioned, casting her eyes thence.
“They better not! If that is the case, they have been using my land for their work.” He walked through to the end of the orchard, where the rank grass was undisturbed. A wild, natural thicket had been allowed to spring up at the point that separated deVigne’s land from that set off for Louise and Andrew when the Cottage had been built, and there was no break in it. The unmolested state of the vegetation was proof that no regular traffic had come this way. Delsie followed after him. They exchanged a look that required no words.
“We can’t be wrong,” Delsie stated firmly as they retraced their steps to the orchard. “I am sure they bring the brandy here, to this orchard. But then what do they do with it? There are plenty of signs of traffic here, in the orchard, you see. The grass is all trampled down.”
“You’ve been here a few times yourself, and I saw Bristcombe in here the other day as well, the day we went shopping in Questnow.”
“The day I found the first bag of gold! He was out looking for it. It was only Bobbie’s waking me so early that morning that led me to it before him. Bristcombe and I did not hold a dance in the orchard, however, and it would take heavy traffic to account for this degree of wear on the grass. It was smugglers and donkeys that did it.”
They both looked around at the thirty trees, two of which were noticeably smaller than others. “Mrs. Bristcombe told Bobbie these two are the pixie trees,” Delsie said, pointing to the runted ones. “As the pixies are smugglers, these two trees must have something to do with it. She said they were worth more than all the others put together.”
“That rather looks as though your housekeeper and non-butler are in on it.”
“It doesn’t surprise me in the least. I knew them for a pair of renegades the minute I set foot in the house. And the old she-devil so kindly making up the guest room for me on the far side of the house, away from the orchard.”
“Calling you ‘miss’ into the bargain,” he reminded her with a quizzing look. “Thoughtful of her; she didn’t want your rest disturbed.”
“I begin to wonder if your aren’t in league with them. Telling me I should not turn them off.”
“Only suggesting! It cannot have escaped your notice I never tell you anything, since you informed me you like to run your own ship. And I would hardly be cadging Andrew’s brandy from you if I had easy access to a cargo of my own.”
“Yes, you would, to blow smoke in my eyes.”
“You have a nasty, suspecting disposition, Mrs. Grayshott,” he informed her with a polite bow.
“I have need of it to deal with this position you have got me into.”
“I am very sorry I forced you into marriage with a law-breaker against your will and better judgment, but really, the matter is finished now. Can’t you try to forget it and settle into your new life with some small degree of pleasure?”
“There will be no pleasure till I have got this place cleaned up and have heard from Andrew’s creditors how much money I owe them. They will be pounding at my door today, I expect, when that notice you inserted in the papers is printed. Should I get money from the bank to pay them, or give them cheques?”
“Cheques will do. There is no need for you to go into town. Do you know, cousin, I have made a strange observation with regard to your marriage,” he said with a smile.