He saw a sitting room. A grey-haired woman sat with her back to the window while, beside the empty fireplace, a book on her lap, sat Jane Gibbons. Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, introduced into the room, bowed to his fiancee. The servant who had fetched Girdwood crossed to the girl's side and picked up the small white dog to keep it from annoying the Colonel.
Sharpe watched for a few seconds, then went back to the library window. The room was empty, the saddlebag left on the table, and within that leather bag, he knew, were the books that would finish Lord Fenner, Sir Henry, and Girdwood. Sharpe stared at the bag, knowing he could take the books now, and then, remembering that hesitation was fatal, he unslung his rifle and opened the small brass lid that covered a compartment carved in the butt.
Inside the compartment were the tools that were used to clean the rifle's lock and to draw a bullet after a misfire. There was a stiff brush, a small screwdriver to take off the plate, a one inch iron nail that held the tension of the mainspring when the cock was dismounted, a small, flat, round oil can, a wormscrew that fitted on the ramrod to draw a bullet, and a metal bar to give leverage on the ramrod when screwing down onto the misfired round. He took the wormscrew, torque bar, and screwdriver, closed the butt trap, and moved over the gravel terrace to the library door.
His sword clanged as he stooped, but there was no pause of alarm in the indistinct noise of voices from the next window on the terrace. He ran the slim screwdriver blade between the leaves of the window, pushed gently to confirm that it was latched, then saw where the shadow, thrown by the candles within the library, betrayed the presence of a lock-tongue.
There was no keyhole on the outside of the door, but the wormscrew, provided by His Majesty, was a perfect cracksman's tool. He slotted the torque bar onto one end, so that it looked like a grim corkscrew, and worked the screw tip to where he knew the tip of the lock-tongue would be. He turned it.
The screw point grated, screeched, and he pushed it further into the gap of the doors, breaking the old wood, turned again, and the wood creaked alarmingly as the strain came onto the metal, then, with a click that he thought must raise the dead, the lock-tongue shot back.
He froze. He could hear nothing except the low voices and the far off mutter of the sea. He pushed the latch down, pressed gently on the door to see whether there were bolts both top and bottom and, to his surprise, the door swung back. The servants had not bolted it, perhaps waiting to do so when they closed and barred the heavy shutters.
He left the garden door open one inch, then silently crossed the bare, polished wooden boards and, praying that the hinges would not creak, closed the library door. He bolted it. Now, should anyone come to the library, he could leave with the books and be on his horse long before they could break down the door or think to use the garden entrance.
He smiled as he unbuckled the saddlebag and took out the two heavy books. He opened one. On the flyleaf, in neat handwriting, was written "The Property of Bartholomew Girdwood, Major". The «Major» had been crossed out and, next to it, was written "Lieutenant Colonel". Then Sharpe's smile went, for the heavy volume was not an account book at all. It had no pages of ruled columns, no closely written figures that would add up to Sir Henry Simmerson's disgrace. It was an ordinary book, entitled A Description of the Sieges of The Duke of Marlborough. Sharpe riffled its pages, seeing only text and diagrams. The second book, equally bare of figures, was called Thoughts on the Late Campaign in Northern Italy with Special Reference to Cavalry Manoeuvres. There were no other books in the saddlebag, just sheafs of paper that proved to be verse, all written in the same meticulous hand. Sharpe stood, frozen. He had pinned all his hopes on finding the auction records in this house, and instead he had found two books of military history. He pushed them, with the poetry, back into the saddlebag and buckled it.
He turned to re-open the door, planning to leave the room as he had found it so that no one would know an intruder had been in the library. He unbolted the door, turned the lever, and pulled it ajar. Then he froze again.
When he had closed the door, caring only about the noise of its hinges and the grating of its bolt, he had been aware that the entrance hall to the house was as packed with weapons as the library in which he stood. Rosettes of bayonets and fans of lances vied with hung pistols and crossed swords. The weapons could have furnished a small fortress, yet it was not the carefully arranged armaments that caught his attention, but rather what, when he had glimpsed them before, he had taken to be the draped folds of curtains.
But he was not seeing curtains. He was seeing two great flags. Each was thirty-six square feet of coloured silk, fringed with yellow tassels. The staffs were proudly topped with carved crowns of England. He was seeing the Colours of the Second Battalion of the South Essex which, against all honour and decency, had been brought to this house and hung in its hallway like trophies of battle.
Sir Henry Simmerson had thought himself a great soldier, yet, when he faced the French in battle for the first time, he had lost a Colour. The second time, he had run away. Now Sharpe was seeing the man's home, seeing the fantasy of a career. The house was filled with weapons, with pictures of soldiers, with models of guns, and now this!
Sharpe felt a terrible anger at the, sight. The flags were the pride of a Battalion, the symbols of its purpose. These great squares of silk were as out of place in this house as the French Eagle was in the Court of St James's, yet at least the French Eagle had been to war, had been won in a fight, while these flags, these pristine, new flags, had never flapped in a musket-fogged wind or drawn men towards their signal as the enemy fire thundered and whipped at the line. They had been purloined to feed Sir Henry's fantasies, just as the Battalion had been purloined to fill his pockets.
The door to the sitting room clicked open and Sharpe, standing in the doorway to the library, knew he could not reach the window undiscovered. There was one place only to hide and he stepped, praying his sword would not knock on wood, behind the angle of the open library door.
Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood's voice sounded just inches from his ear. 'You will forgive my haste, Miss Jane?
'It seems extravagant, sir.
Girdwood's footsteps sounded on the floorboards. Sharpe heard the saddle-bag scrape on the table, then Girdwood chuckled. 'When the army summons a soldier, dear Miss Jane, all we may do is obey with alacrity. It was ever thus. His footsteps paused the other side of the door. 'One day, perhaps, when my service is over, I might look forward to a leisure spent ever at your side. His heels clicked together, his spurs ringing. 'Mrs Grey? May I wish you a good night?
'Thank you, sir. You have your books safe?
'Most safe.
'And I pray you give Sir Henry our most dutiful regards.
'It will be my pleasure. There were more footsteps in the hall, the sound of the front door opening, and Sharpe stood, silent and still, debating whether to leave now. Perhaps, on the moonlit road, he could force from Girdwood the whereabouts of the accounts.
Yet before he could move, the sound of hooves on gravel was abruptly cut off by the closing of the front door, and voices murmured outside the library. They were close, and coming closer. 'I shall take your aunt her medicine, Jane.
'Thank you, Mrs Grey. Jane's voice was demure.
'And you will go to bed? It was as much an order as a question.
'I shall fetch my book first, Mrs Grey.
'Then goodnight. Sharpe heard footsteps on the hall floor. He was staring at the window. If a servant came to bolt the window-doors, then fold and bar the shutters on the night, surely he must see Sharpe behind the door? He held his breath as footsteps sounded in the room again.