“That,” Toby quietly said, “is something we can arrange if you cooperate with us.”
Hardcastle shifted on the chair. His gaze flicked from Toby to Christopher, then he looked down at his bound hands.
When the silence stretched and Hardcastle didn’t look up, Ellen wondered if he was ready to talk but didn’t know where to begin. She started pacing again; passing behind Toby’s chair, she asked, “How did you know about the old smuggling routes?”
Hardcastle raised his head, stared at her, then moistened his lips and replied, “My father used to run with a smuggling gang, back in the old days. Out of Lydd. I’d grown up hearing all the tales, all the stories of how things were done, and my father had shown me the hidey holes they’d used, back when I was a nipper.” He transferred his gaze to the desk.
When Hardcastle again fell silent, Toby caught Christopher’s eyes and arched a brow.
Christopher mouthed, “Wait.”
Several seconds later, Hardcastle shifted awkwardly again, then looked up and met Christopher’s and Toby’s gazes. “You’ve got the notes, but you already knew I had them. You knew about the notes themselves, and you knew I had them stashed somewhere in the inn. All that palaver about a raid was a trick to make me rush and get the notes to move them, wasn’t it?”
Christopher held the publican’s gaze, then nodded once. “Yes.”
Hardcastle gave that due thought. “Sounds like you already know how the notes got to me, then.”
“We have some notion,” Toby admitted. “Why don’t you tell us, to make sure we’ve guessed correctly?”
Hardcastle narrowed his eyes at Toby, then looked at Christopher, but the man’s belligerence was fading. “I was a fool to get involved, but…I just wanted the money. Not the counterfeit stuff, the real money the lady paid me for delivering the notes to her.”
Before they could ask which lady, Hardcastle said, “I don’t want my family dragged into this. They know nothing at all about any of it. If I tell you all I know…” He looked at them questioningly.
Brows rising, Christopher looked up at Ellen.
She nodded and, halting behind Christopher, met Hardcastle’s eyes. “Regardless of what happens to you, we’ll do what we can to ensure your family doesn’t suffer for your sins.”
Hardcastle studied her, then looked at Christopher, searching his face. Eventually, Hardcastle nodded. “All right.”
Toby leaned forward. “Start at the beginning. Who first approached you?”
“I was in Rye, picking up supplies from the warehouse there. I’d stopped at a tavern on the docks for a quick pint before starting home, and I heard this fellow, a Frenchy by his accent, asking about the old smuggling routes.” Hardcastle huffed. “He was asking in the wrong tavern—no one there had any connections. Well, except for me, and after paying for a month’s worth of spirits, I’d just been worrying about how little I was making at the Bull… Anyways, I tipped the fellow a wink and met him outside. He explained he needed a sure way of carting a package from the coast to a place up in the Weald.”
Hardcastle paused, clearly thinking back. “He and I, we went round and round, neither trusting the other first off. Eventually, I told him I knew of ways it might be done, but I’d want the cargo to come ashore about two miles west of Dungeness. That suited him fine—he got quite excited and told me the destination was a place near St. George’s Church in a village called Benenden. Well, it seemed like it was meant, didn’t it? I told him I knew the place—that it wasn’t far from where I lived. I didn’t want to tell him the church was next door, but that seemed to settle it for him. We went into a coffeehouse and sat and worked it all out—how the cargo, which was really a bundle of counterfeit notes, would come across the Channel stuck inside packets of lace. Me and a mate would pick up the packets on the beach, direct from the boats, and cart them to Lydd. We would hide them in the tombs in Lydd churchyard—you can never be sure of exactly what time of night a boat will beach, so to make sure we never got caught out by the dawn and no one ever saw us carting strange packets about, we left the packets in the tombs, rode home, then came back the next night or a few nights later and picked up the stuff.”
Now he’d started talking, Hardcastle rolled on without prompting, “The man said the first three runs would be small—just four or so packets—to make sure the entire system was working. After that would come larger loads. A message stuck in with the fake notes would tell me by what date I was expected to hand the notes on.”
Hardcastle looked at Christopher and Toby.
Christopher asked, “Who were you told to pass the notes to?”
“And how,” Toby asked, “were you to let them know you had notes to pass on?”
Hardcastle pulled a face. “Even now, I don’t know who, exactly, comes and gets the notes. The Frenchy—Millais, his name was—asked me if there was a gravestone in St. George’s churchyard, an old one, one no one ever put flowers on. I told him the grave of old Jeremiah Walkhurst had a big old headstone, and there were no Walkhursts in the district anymore. So Millais told me that after I’d picked up the first run—which turned out to be four packets—to pull the notes out from the lace, check what date I was to deliver them by, wrap the notes up in a neat bundle, all tied up, then early one morning, on or before but close to the delivery date, put flowers on old Jeremiah’s grave. He told me I’d get a note in reply, left with the flowers, telling me when and where to meet the person who would take the notes and pay me. I’d get ten pounds per packet of lace, on top of the lace itself, which I’d be free to sell on.”
Hardcastle shrugged his beefy shoulders. “That was good money for doing very little, and it seemed like no real risk, either.” He met Toby’s eyes. “No skin off my nose if some of the notes going around aren’t from the Bank of England.”
Toby only shook his head.
“So what happened the first time you left flowers on the grave?” Christopher asked. “Who contacted you?”
“I left the flowers like Millais said, then checked back late in the afternoon and found a note tucked in with the flowers. It said to meet in the woods to the west of the lychgate at midnight that night—and to burn the message, which I did.” Hardcastle shrugged again. “So I took the banknotes and went, and there was a woman there, cloaked and veiled, waiting for me. I told her I had the notes from four packets of lace, and she said, “Correct,” and handed me the money—forty quid, just like Millais had promised.”
Hardcastle stared at the desktop, a faint frown on his face. “She told me leaving the flowers on Jeremiah’s grave was to be our signal. If I left them, she would be there at midnight to pick up the notes, and if she wanted to contact me, she’d put flowers on the same grave, but later in the morning.” Hardcastle glanced at Christopher. “She’s never done that.”
“Who is she?” Christopher asked.
“I don’t know, do I?” A touch of Hardcastle’s earlier truculence resurfaced. “I’ve met her three times now, and the second and third time, she said nothing at all.”