I turned to the rector with a start. “Wait. Mr. Archibald Young?”
“Aye, well, that’s the son’s name. His father was Alvin Young.”
I glanced at Gage. “Was the friend who accompanied him a Lord Shellingham?”
“Aye. That’s it.” The rector smiled. “Introduced him as his cousin, though on his father’s side. No relation to Lady Fleming.”
“Do you think it’s a coincidence?” Trevor asked grimly, aware of the players involved.
Gage’s nostrils flared like a predator picking up his prey’s scent. “I highly doubt it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Following my suggestion, and the rector’s directions, we drove along the road that roughly paralleled the River Teviot in search of Geordie’s abode. We found it tucked among the trees at a bend in the river. It was hardly more than a shack, with no windows and only one warped door. He yelled out for us to enter when Gage knocked on the rough wood, and when we stepped inside, it was to find him seated before a table staring at a dusty, unopened bottle of amber liquid. His hair was uncombed and his face sported several days’ growth of a beard. From the look in his eyes and the slump to his shoulders, I suspected he’d been sitting that way for a very long time.
He blinked up at us and heaved a weary sigh, his only reaction to the sight of three upper-class people standing in the doorway of his hovel. I didn’t know if he was resigned to us or too numbed by alcohol to care. The room was barely warmer than it was outside, and there was a distinctly sour odor coming from Geordie’s general vicinity, so I hung back by the door, allowing Gage to take the reins of the conversation.
He briefly introduced us before moving straight to the reason for our visit. “We understand you were the watchman at the church graveyard on the night Lord Fleming’s grave was disturbed.”
Geordie looked up at him with unresponsive eyes, his fingers still wrapped loosely around either side of the liquor bottle sitting on the table before him.
Gage pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. “We were told you fell asleep, possibly with the aid of some strong spirits . . .” his gaze flicked down to the bottle “. . . and that’s why you didn’t hear anything. Is that true?”
His gaze dropped to the bottle before him, one corner of his mouth tightening. “’Twas also windy,” he replied in a rough voice.
I could understand that. The blustery weather this morning had made it difficult to hear each other a few feet away, let alone across an entire graveyard.
But Gage did not sympathize so easily. “Do you know what I think, Geordie? I think it’s all a lie.” He spoke in a calm but implacable voice, leaning forward over the table. “I think you made that all up because you didn’t want to tell the truth.”
Geordie’s hands flexed around the bottle.
Gage sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “How much did they bribe you?”
Trevor and I stood quietly by the door watching Geordie, wondering what thoughts were flickering through his head. Gage looked ready to sit there for hours, if necessary, until the Scotsman talked. Fortunately, it only took about a minute of this silent standoff before the man broke.
“Five pounds,” he mumbled.
Gage’s mouth twisted in skepticism. “Just five pounds? You must have been pretty desperate if that’s all it took.”
Geordie scowled at the bottle. “’Twasn’t the money.” He finally looked up into Gage’s stern visage. “They gave me no choice. They said I could take the blunt an’ look the other way or they’d shoot me.”
After what had happened to Dodd, I fully believed this explanation. The only wonder was that they gave the man a choice instead of killing him straight out. But maybe their employer hadn’t been happy with the mess they’d made of the snatching at Dryburgh Abbey. Maybe murder had not been on that man’s agenda.
Geordie turned to appeal to me and Trevor when Gage said nothing. “What was I s’posed to do? I got a wife and bairn to feed.” His mouth screwed up and he muttered, “No’ that that’s done me any guid now. Me wife left an’ took the bairn when she heard I’d fallen asleep after s’posedly drinkin’. I swore I hadna. But she didna believe me.” His head sank lower on his shoulders.
Gage reached out to wrap his fingers around the neck of the bottle, pulling it out of Geordie’s hands. “Well, starting back up now isn’t going to make her return.” He thunked the bottle down on his side of the wooden surface.
Geordie shook his head. “She’s no’ comin’ back this time.”
“She will when she hears about the caretaker these body snatchers killed in a graveyard just north of here.”
He blinked up at him in surprise, and a light returned to his eyes. It was clear he didn’t know what to say, so Gage helped him along.
“I’ll make sure the rector along with anyone else of consequence knows the truth, if you’ll help us catch these men.”