JACK OF DIAMONDS

Chapter 3

This the 3rd chapter of my serial novel. I’m putting them up one whole chapter at a time. Tell me if they’re too long.

I want to welcome the newest member to our little group here, Dr. Donna McArthur! I’m so glad she converted. She always leaves amazing comments. I hope you stick around Donna and that I don’t disappoint you.

It was a pretty bad week all in all. My son’s friend Josh, lost his son. He was only 15. Heartbreaking for all of us.

It only serves to remind me that I’m coming up on the anniversary of my own traumatic accident at work, last year in 2022.

Okay, enough of that.

This being the 3rd chapter, there are only three left before the rest of the story goes up behind the PAYWALL. Once the paywall goes up, this time it stays up. If you were hooked on THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY, I’ll be putting it back up, but we’ll finish JACK OF DIAMONDS first. My SHORT STORIES AFTER 8 will ALWAYS be FREE. When I’ve finished with THE DAWN PATROL, I’ll have a new story to put up. And that’s the way I’m going to balance it. FREE stories (novellas) and PAID for the Serials.

Photo by Shariq Khan on Unsplash

Better to choose the culprits

The lane was a single rutted track of mud after three days of heavy rain. Most of it was lost under pools of water, making it difficult for Reggie to negotiate. Artie was reminded of the mud tracks at the Front as the van seemed to cut its own path and travel it at its own pace no matter what Reggie did. They bounced through bone-jarring holes and slid down the other side of ruts, even as Reggie turned the steering wheel in the opposite direction. Artie watched Reggie pumping the brake, but the tires slid, unable to grip the slick mud, so he looked out at the low rolling hills in the distance instead. Some of the hills lay under a shroud of mist as sun broke out from behind a bank of cloud. It was better than looking at the sloping hill they were negotiating. The mist looked like it was caught up in the trees and hedgerows, making the distant farms look like a smudged Turner painting.

Artie looked at Claire sitting beside him. He was holding the door frame, trying to stop himself from being thrown about; it did little to help her though. She found herself being tossed about as if she were a toy in a child’s bath. He thought she was pretty enough for him to want to see her naked though, so he looked away, back out over long fields of green.

  He remembered countryside like this when he was younger—before the war, before he left for Cambridge—after the summer with his uncle—and before his life fell apart. He’d go riding with his brothers and sister with the coming dawn. There were five of them, with only four dogs between them—one old, one with a permanent limp, one almost blind, and another he thought might be rabid. There’d been some mornings when there’d be almost a dozen riders, and three more dogs. Someone would blow a horn and cry out, “Let slip the dogs of war!” But the dogs would usually wander about the yard until his brother Geoffrey would be forced to round them up and they’d all  set off into the countryside. It brought a smile to his lips.

Artie wondered if the sons and daughters of the surrounding Manor houses met and rode together the way he and his neighbours had when he was younger. Or was that because it was another time, he wondered, another age? With three brothers and a sister, the size of the riding parties over the years always varied. But there was always at least one other girl besides his sister. Sometimes, there’d be a variety of cousins visiting; it seemed their only interests were the brothers, and sisters of the country cousins. Sometimes, the horses weren’t the only thing being ridden, he remembered.

He looked at Reggie hunched low in the seat and fighting to keep the van on the narrow road. He looked as if he’d been beaten down. Artie wondered how long Reggie could last with a ruined crop. He looked at Claire and remembered what Reggie had been like ‘Over There’. He recounted a time when he visited Reggie in the hospital and they traveled to some French town where the whores welcomed them with open thighs.

He looked at Claire again.

Artie still didn’t mind the idea of seeing her naked; he wondered if she felt the same way about him. He doubted it; never a good idea to get your hopes up when it came your friend’s woman. She hadn't shifted away from him though, and he could feel the press of her leg against his thigh.

“I'm somewhat curious as to what you’re going to do now, Reg. No wait. That’s wrong. I want to know what the fuck you think you’re going to do now? This has ruined you.”

“Somethin’ always comes up, Artie,” Reggie said, sounding somewhat forlorn.

“You think so, do you? Seriously? Even with all of this?”

“As long as we have food, we’ll manage. Claire can cook.”

“That’s what I do,” she said, looking ahead with a dead-pan expression.

“I know,” Artie smiled.

“Just in case ye weren’t paying attention...like ye were just now,” she quipped.

“When?”

“When ye weren't paying attention.”

“And just what was I supposed to not be paying attention to?”

“When he said somethin’ always comes up,” she reminded him.

“Is that supposed to mean something? What are you going to do with all this?” he asked again.

“Well, we were t’inkin’, me an’ Claire, that if she were to cook her pies, I could deliver them here about.”

“They’d never let you do that.”

“Why do ya have to say that so quick?” Reggie asked.

“Because I know they won’t. No manor cook is going to buy the wares off another cook and feed it to the household.”

“Ye think I don’t know that? I’m a cook, remember?”

“You can’t sell it to the staff, either.”

“I know that, too,” she said.

“So? What’s left?” Artie asked.

“There’re plen’y of farmsteads an’ villages here ‘bouts. She can cook, an’ she can make meat an’ veggie pies I can sell door to door if I have to. If we do it right, we can make a go of it,” Reggie said.

“And you know the right way?”

He nodded.

“Why do I have the feeling there’s a big ‘but’ hanging there somewhere?”

“But we need money,” Reggie smiled.

“We?” he asked, looking at Claire, who nodded. “Is that why you were so quick to invite me here? To borrow money? You know I have none.”

“Not now ya don’t,” Reggie smiled. “But yer the only man I know what knows how to get money. If ya don’t have it, ya knows where to get it. By hook or by crook, if I remember,” Reggie added.

“I don’t have a pound to my name.”

“Which is why I came to ya.”

“I’m not following you, Reg.”

“Anyone else? They would’ve said they dint have a penny to their name. But not yerself; not Artemus Spencer. No. Ya say ya don’t got a pound to spare.”

“What are you getting on about?”

“Ya know these people, Artie. These people are yer people. Ya understand them. Ya grew up with them. Ya know the value of somethin’ when ya see it.”

“Are you going to get to the point?”

“It’s not like ya haven’t done it before.”

“Done what?"

“Don’t plat innocent with me. I watched what ya did—and how ya did it—that night in Paris,” Reggie explained.

“We were drunk.”

“Which makes it all the more amazing. I don’t know what ya stole, but I know ya stole something. I saw ya go in through that window. It was at least three stories up,” he said, turning to look at Claire. “He climbed up the side of the building like he was climbin’ a ladder. He was jumpin’ from balcony to balcony like a circus acrobat, hangin’ off of gutters, an’ ledges—slidin’ down roof tiles—hangin’ by his fingernails. I never seen anything like it.”

Claire turned to look at him, and Artie tried to force a smile.

“He’s not wrong, is he? I mean, it’s true, isn’t it?”

Artie remained silent.

“Have ye ever heard of The Cromwell Skull?” she asked, filling in the silence.

“The Cromwell Skull? You mean the real Cromwell?"

“I’d asked if ye’ve ever heard of it?”

“No. But I know who Cromwell was. I’ve never heard anything about his skull though. What do you know about it that I don’t?’

“That it’s coming to Marlborough Manor.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“Ye hear all sorts of stories when ye work in a house like Mandalay. People’re talkin’ in front of the servin’ staff all the time, because no one ever thinks the servants’re listenin’. But the servants’re always talkin’ ‘mongst themselves, aren’t they? So, ye hear things.”

“And what, exactly, did you hear?”

“That they’re bringin’ The Cromwell Skull out to Marlborough Manor—to start off the Solstice Season.”

“And what, pray-tell, is the Solstice Season?”

“It marks the start of the Festive Season; it coincides with the Hunter’s Moon.”

“The Hunter’s Moon? I’ve heard of that. When’s that?”

“October. Near the end of the month. It’s when the moon’s full. First, there’s a Fair in Chumley Grove that starts it all off, though. Ever’one goes there. After that, each one of the Manor houses host one of six fancy dress Balls. The first one’s always a Costume Ball. It moves around from year to year. That’s when they hide the Cromwell Skull somewhere in the house. Whoever finds it, gets to keep the contents of the skull.”

“And what are the contents of the skull?”

“Sovereigns. Real gold sovereigns.”

“Well, that puts a new spin on things, don’t it Artie?” Reggie said with a grin.

“And you want me to steal it?”

“I never said that,” she said, shaking her head. “I never said that at all.”

“What about you, Reg? You want me to steal it?”

“That’s not it at all,” she laughed.

“Then what?”

“The people livin’ in these fancy Houses are either titled, or monied. They have jewels. They have cash. And they have safes.”

“Safes?”

“Yes.”

“And how am I supposed to get in when there’s a dinner party going on?”

“I told you, the Costume Ball will be at Marlborough this year. So the other houses will be empty. The servants take the night off. Sure, some are still there, but most of them live in the village, or have family there, so they’re off for the night. I’m sure you noticed the open window upstairs at Mandalay? It’s been open for seven years. It doesn’t close.”

“So?”

“There’re eighty rooms in Mandalay Manor, remember? From what I’ve seen, every one of those rooms is a treasure trove. They’ve never closed that window. They think: ‘Who’s going to crawl through a window that high up?’ It’s at least fifty feet high.”

“And this is in Mandalay? Marlborough? Which one?”

“Mandalay. That’s the one we just left.”

“Why don’t I go to Marlborough instead, and find the skull?”

“Because you’ll never find it.”

“Not alone, I won’t. No. But if you find out where it is for me.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?”

“Like you said, the servants to talk. Someone has to know where it’s hidden. All you have to do is listen. I’m not saying you should hire yourself out as a parlour maid. But you could offer your services in the kitchen?”

“You want to steal The Cromwell Skull?” Reggie laughed.

“Why steal it, when I can win it?”

“But that’s not until October,” Claire pointed out. “What do we do in the meantime?”

“Make pies?” Artie smiled.