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They were closer to Tipton Hollow than she had realised and, within minutes, pulled up outside of the constable’s house. Fred was luckily at home, and swiftly on his way to take a look at the carriage.
“Where is it, did you say?”
“We will show you,” Beatrice sighed. She glanced at Ben and sensed his argument, but quickly looked away. “The carriage is familiar to me, and not just because it is the same carriage that nearly ran me other the other day. I have seen it before around and about before then, I am sure of it.”
“In Tipton Hollow?” Fred demanded with a scowl as Ben turned the carriage around in the road.
Beatrice put her head in her hands and scoured her memory for details of where she had seen it last. “It is very similar to Caroline Smethwick’s carriage.”
“Can’t be hers,” Fred replied. “She got rid of it once the Detective Inspector arrested those psychics.”
“I am not saying it is hers, but it looks similar.”
Fred frowned. “Let’s go and take a look, shall we?”
Silence settled over them until they got to the site of the accident. Fred climbed down and stared at the carriage with a dark frown on his face. He shoved his way through the hedge and studied the horse before he took a closer look at the firmly embedded carriage.
“It’s the same one,” he growled, clearly bewildered.
“What do you mean?” Beatrice’s stomach dropped to her toes. “It’s the same one as what?”
She threw a somewhat panicked look at Ben, and was suddenly glad that she had decided to return to the site. A wild thrill of anticipation swept through her at the thought that they were going to get at least one answer today. Unfortunately, her anticipation was quickly replaced with doubt and concern. She saw the look on Fred’s face, and knew that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“Unless my eyes are deceiving me, this is indeed Caroline Smethwick’s carriage.”
Beatrice’s first instinct was to burst out laughing and tell him not to be so ridiculous. Caroline Smethwick was a member of the Circle, and a friend. It was inconceivable to think that she would do something so heinous as to try to run her over – twice, and run Ben off the road – twice.
“What makes you think that?” Ben snapped and stared at the constable before he turned to study the carriage a bit more closely.
“There are some small nicks in the traces; here look.” Fred pointed to three deep grooves in the trace closest to them. “This is where the lads banged it against one of the posts in the coal merchant’s yard.”
Beatrice stared at the horse for a moment. “I thought she sold both the carriage and the horse months ago.”
“I did too,” Fred replied. “It certainly hasn’t been stored in Brewster’s yard, I would have seen it. She said she had gotten rid of it, but there is nothing to say that she didn’t keep it and just move it somewhere else. This is definitely her carriage, I am sure of it.”
“Good Lord, why would Caroline Smethwick want to hurt you?” Ben growled, completely astonished at the thought that a villager could be trying to kill her - them.
The hurt and confusion on Beatrice’s face made him incredibly angry, and Ben’s fists clenched against the urge to storm over to Caroline’s house and demand some answers.
“I will go and see if I can find her,” Fred declared firmly. “First, I need to have a word with the lads down at the station. I don’t know if the Detective Inspector is back from London yet. If he is, I think he needs to look into this. She tried to run you off the road, you say?”
“Twice,” Ben growled. “We also think it was her who tried to run us over on Sunday. Why though? I mean, what is she trying to do?”
Fred shook his head and scratched his head.
“Caroline is my friend. She wouldn’t do something like this,” she whispered with a shake of her head. Hurt swept through her at the thought that someone she had considered a friend hated her so much that they were prepared to physically injure her, or kill her. A part of her simply refused to believe it; although deep inside she rather suspected it was true.
She turned doubtful eyes on Ben. “Why?”
“I don’t know darling, but I am damned sure that we are going to find out.” He turned to Fred. “She had abandoned the carriage by the time we got here, and headed that way. She may have been injured when this thing crashed through the hedge, I don’t know. It was certainly going fast enough that it could have thrown her off.”
Fred looked at him. “I need to get someone to get this damned thing out of here, and the hedge filled in so the horse doesn’t escape.”
“Do you want to go back to the village, or go the farm first to have a word with the farmer? It is going to need the plough horses to pull this huge monstrosity out of the mud.”
“I think the plough horses come first. I need to send Farmer Barney’s lad over to the station in Great Tipton for reinforcements.”
They climbed aboard Ben’s carriage and, for the second time that day headed toward Tipton Hollow. They all kept their eye out for any sign of Caroline Smethwick, but of course there wasn’t any.
