pistol he pointed at the driver’s head. The driver remained stock-still, mouth ajar, terror etched on to his thin face.
The driver’s mate was not so obedient. With a muffled oath, he reached down for the blunderbuss that lay between his feet and swung the weapon up. His heavy rain-slicked cape, however, hampered his movements.
The highwayman’s accomplice reacted with remarkable speed. The night was split with the flash of powder and the crack of a pistol. The driver’s mate threw up his arms as the ball took him in the chest. The blunderbuss slipped from his weakened grasp and dropped over the side of the coach, glancing off a wheel before it struck the ground. The guard’s body fell back across the driving seat.
The first highwayman pointed his pistol at the terrified coachman. “You move, you die.” To his accomplice, he said, “Watch him while I take care of the rest.”
As his companion guarded the driver, the highwayman trotted his horse towards the coach. As he did so a large, pale face appeared at the window.
“Coachman! What’s happening?” The voice was male and, judging by the tone, belonged to someone used to wielding authority. “What’s going on out there?”
The passenger’s features materialized into those of a middle-aged man of lumpish countenance. His jaw went slack as his eyes took in the anonymous, threatening figure towering above him and the weapon aimed at the bridge of his nose.
The highwayman leaned out of his saddle. “All right, everybody out.” He motioned with the pistol, whereupon the gargoyle head withdrew sharply and the door of the coach opened.
The highwayman caught the cowering driver’s eye and jerked his head. “An’ you can join ‘em, culley. Move yourself!”
The driver, herded by the highwayman’s accomplice, backed timidly towards the coach, hands held high.
The passengers began to emerge. There were four of them.
A stout man in a dark tail coat, now identifiable as the individual who had stuck his head out of the window, was the first to descend, tiptoeing gingerly to avoid fouling his fine buckled shoes. Next was a woman, her face obscured by the hood of her cloak. She held out a hand and the stout man helped her down. She reached up and withdrew the hood, revealing a haughty, heavily powdered face. The highwayman clicked his tongue as the man pulled her to him and placed his arm protectively around her thin shoulders. Husband and wife, the highwayman guessed. She was too old and too damned plain to be his mistress.
The third person to step down from the coach was a slightly built man dressed in the uniform of a naval officer; dark blue cloak over matching jacket and white breeches. The face beneath the pointed brim of his fore and aft cocked hat showed him to be younger than his fellow passengers, though he appeared to alight from the coach with some difficulty, like an old man suffering from ague. He winced as his boot landed in the mud. His brow furrowed as he took in the two riders. Glancing up towards the driver’s seat, his expression hardened when he saw the still, lifeless body of the guard.
The last occupant to step down caused the highwayman to smirk behind his scarf. The man was elderly and cadaverous in appearance. He was clad entirely in black, the wispy white hair that poked from beneath his hat an almost perfect match for the white splayed collar that encircled his scrawny neck.
“All right, you know what to do.” As he spoke, the highwayman lifted a leather satchel from the pommel of his saddle and tossed it to the driver. “Hold on to that. The rest of you drop your stuff in the bag. Quickly now. We ain’t got all bleedin’ night!” The pistol barrels moved menacingly from passenger to passenger. “And that includes the bauble around your neck, Vicar.”
Instinctively, the parson’s hand moved to the cross that hung from his neck on a silver chain. “You’d dare steal from a man of the cloth?”
The highwayman gave a dry laugh. “I’d take Gabriel’s horn if I could get a good price for it. Now, ‘and the bloody thing over!”
Obediently, the parson lifted the chain over his head and lowered it carefully into the satchel. The driver’s hands shook as he received the offering.
“By God! This is an outrage!”
The protestation came from the passenger in the tail coat, who, with some difficulty, was attempting to remove a watch chain from his waistcoat pocket. Beside him, the woman shivered, wide-eyed, as she fingered the gold wedding band on her left hand.
“Come on, you old goat!” the highwayman snapped. “The ring! Sharply now, else I’ll climb down and take it off myself. Maybe grab a quick kiss, too. Though I dare say you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Horrified, the woman shrank back, twisted the ring off her finger and dropped it into the bag. A flicker of anger moved across the naval officer’s face as he lifted a small bag of coin from an inner pocket and tossed it into the satchel. Drawing his cloak around him, he stepped away.
“Whoa! Not so fast, pretty boy. Ain’t we forgetting something?”
The air seemed suddenly still as the highwayman gestured with his chin. “What’s that you’ve got hidden under your cloak? Hoping I wouldn’t notice, maybe?”
The officer’s jaw tightened. “It’s nothing you’d be interested in.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it ain’t.” The highwayman lifted his pistol. “Let’s take a look, though, shall we?” Wordlessly, after a moment’s hesitation, the passenger lifted the edge of his cloak to reveal his right hand, holding what appeared to be a leather dispatch pouch, but unlike any the highwayman had seen before. What made it different were the flat bands of metal encircling the pouch and the fact that the bag was secured to the passenger’s wrist by a bracelet and chain.
The highwayman threw his accomplice a brief glance. His eyes glinted. “Well, now,” he murmured, “and what’ve we got here?”
“Papers,” the man in the cloak said, “that’s all.”
The highwayman’s eyes narrowed. “In that case, you won’t mind me takin’ a look, will you?” The highwayman handed the reins of his horse to his companion, and dismounted.
Walking forward, the highwayman waggled his pistol to indicate that the young man should move apart from the other passengers. With his free hand, he snapped his fingers impatiently. “Key!”
The officer shook his head. “I don’t have a key. Besides, I told you, it holds nothing of value.”
“I won’t ask you again,” the highwayman said. He raised the pistol and pointed the twin muzzles at the officer’s forehead.
“Are you deaf, man? I don’t have a damned key!”
The highwayman snorted derisively. “You expect me to believe that? Of course you’ve got a bloody key!”
The officer shook his head again and sighed in exasperation. “Listen, you witless oaf, only two people possess a key: the person who placed the papers in the pouch and locked it, and the person I’m delivering them to. You can search me if you like.” The young man’s eyes glittered with anger. “But you’d have to kill me first,” he added. The challenge was unmistakable. Kill a naval officer and suffer the consequences.
It was a lie, of course. The key to the bracelet and pouch was concealed in a cavity in his boot heel.
The highwayman stared at the passenger for several seconds before he shrugged in apparent resignation. “All right, Lieutenant. If you insist.”
The pistol roared. The look of utter astonishment remained etched on the young man’s face as the ball took him in the right eye. The woman screamed and collapsed into her husband’s arms in a dead swoon as the officer, brain shattered by the impact, toppled backwards into the mud. He was dead before his corpse hit the ground.
Holstering the still smoking pistol, the highwayman sprang forward and began to rifle the dead man’s pockets. Several articles were brought to light: