by Joan Aiken
“Whose else could it be?”
“It might have been Let—No, it is Kirstie’s,” he said.
“How—?”
“He sent it to me.”
“Who sent it to you?” asked Val, utterly staggered.
“Nuggie Reydon. That was what I found when I got back home.”
“Oh—” Val drew a long, appalled breath. “You mean that man—Lord Clanreydon? Did he kill Kirstie?”
“Of course!” Nils answered wearily. “Kirstie always a stupid little trusting idiot, who’d believe any tale, who couldn’t say boo to a goose. I think they got her on board the Dragonfly with some story of my being there, ill—why she should believe such stuff!” he grumbled discontentedly. “I don’t know—perhaps they just took her by force. I got back to find the—the hand, and a message that I’d better come, if I wanted to find her alive. It wasn’t true—she was already drowned. The hand was just to get me there.”
“So you went—what happened? Where was the Dragonfly?”
“At Tilbury. I went—didn’t know what she might be giving away. Nuggie wanted my articles—I hadn’t got them with me,” Nils answered disjointedly. Obviously he could hardly bear to recall that occasion. “He told me then that Kirstie was dead. They all came round me—his sailors—he has an Arab crew. Picked ‘em up at Port Said. They don’t even speak English; just do as he tells ‘em. There was a fight; but I got away. Jumped over the side.” He added in a self-congratulatory tone which Val found both ludicrous and painful, “I’ve had experience in getting away.”
“But Nils—for God’s sake—what is all this about? Why did they do—that—to Kirstie? Poor, poor little Kirstie who probably never hurt a fly—it’s like a horrible nightmare—” Val, weeping, burst out. “That man—that Clanreydon—what is he?”
“Oh, hadn’t you guessed?” Nils drawled coolly, looking at her under his white lashes. “That’s rather slow of you, my dear Valla. You’re usually such a clever gal at discovering things about people. He’s the Bermondsey Beast.”
“Lord Clanreydon? You must be joking?”
But part of her did believe him.
“Hardly a joke,” said Nils. And indeed, he had grown even paler.
“But he’s a member of Parliament! He’s going to be a cabinet minister!”
“Oh yes—he’s a clever fellow. However even cabinet ministers have their quirks—like the rest of us. And that makes an excellent reason why he don’t want the news getting round. No one can deny he’s got a good brain, though—as good as they come.”
The appalling thing was, Val thought, that Nils really did seem to admire Clanreydon.
She began to see a great deal.
“You found that out,” she said slowly. “You have evidence about it—enough to prove your case?”
“Yes.” He lay back against the wall, among his blankets, with a faint, gratified smile. “I nosed around quietly—oh, for several years now. Put two and two together. Watched Nuggie—when he didn’t know I was at it. For a long time I suspected there was more to him than met the eye, don’t you know.” He burst out again. “But think of it! Think of being able to stand up and make a speech in the House, about free trade, or home rule, and all the time hold that tucked away inside you—it’s like living two lives instead of only one!”
His eyes shone with fanatical admiration—almost awe.
“What a nerve the fellow has! Of course he’s mad—mad as a March hare—but, just the same, he’s a genius! You should have heard his speech on fiscal policy—they said there’d been nothing like it since Pitt! And then—when he’s off duty, as it were—out he goes, into the dark.”
Val shuddered.
Nils went on—now that he had got started, he seemed to enjoy talking about Clanreydon—“I found out where he came from. His parents were Irish, both convicted murderers, deported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1853; they escaped and turned bushrangers. His father was called the Tasmanian Devil. His mother had poisoned her first husband, in County Cork. Nuggie ran off from them and went to Hobart and got himself adopted by a clergyman who put him through school; he repaid the man by stealing his savings and taking off to Queensland, where he did well—Oh, I’ve traced him right along!”
“But why didn’t you go to the police?”
He made no reply. Val answered herself.
“You were in financial difficulties—you thought you’d squeeze some money out of him—so you threatened him.”
“And he threatened me back!” Nils burst out angrily. “The fool! He ought to know me better than that. I’d got my articles all written—ready—I showed him a page or two—”
“But couldn’t you see that a man like that—who had done those things”—she gulped, remembering the newspaper reports—“who had everything to lose—would stop at nothing to keep you quiet?”
“But I was his friend.” Nils sounded pathetic, really injured. Has he no moral sense at all? Val thought amazedly. “He might have known he could trust me—we’ve known each other so long. But I’ve diddled him anyway.” Nils ended on a triumphant note. “I got off his cursed yacht—swam ashore. Had to lie low, of course—couldn’t go to my usual haunts. He’d have been after me. But he ain’t likely to come here.”
“Nils, you have got to inform the police about all this. If you don’t—I shall.”
“But then I shall lose all my advantage over him—it’s worth half a million at the very least. You might at least wait till he’s paid up,” Nils said injuredly.
She saw that he was quite beyond reason and rose to go downstairs, determined to take action about it herself. She would write to Sir Marcus and give the letter to Tom the postman as soon as he made his way back over the snowy hill—
Nils cried, “Val, don’t leave a fellow! There’s someone standing over in that corner, I swear. If I turn my head I shall see her. Don’t leave me here alone in this horrible little room.”
“Do you want to come down and walk on the terrace, then?” she said reluctantly.
“All right—so long as the children ain’t about.”
She helped him downstairs and walked with him on the snowy flagstones, though she found it hard to endure his company. Even the sight of him filled her with such horror that she felt almost physically sick; he seemed imbued with a dreadful contagion which must affect anyone who came near him. She was glad to keep the children away from him. They, luckily, were still with Mungo in the boathouse, and she insisted on Nils returning to his room before they came in.
When they did, they were serene and cheerful.
“Mungo has a little fire in the boathouse, Aunt Val,” Pieter told her. “An’ he heats up the tar an’ paints it on the boat, and I help him. But there’s an awful lot more to do.”
It was fortunate, Val thought, that the boathouse was so far from the house—down a steep, slippery, laurel-girt path by the streamside. By good management, another confrontation between Nils and his children could be avoided at least for some time.
Two uneasy days went by. No further snow fell—but what had fallen still lay on the ground, hardened into an icy crust. The sun seemed to have withdrawn permanently; a freezing fog hung low, filling every cranny, creeping under doors, making it impossible to see across the stable yard.
Nils made but slow progress, although Val persuaded him into the open air as much as she could. He complained furiously about being deprived of his laudanum drops and constantly accused Val of being too stingy to give him his passage money to America.
“If I’d known you were going to be so cursed clutch-fisted I’d have borrowed it from Letty along with the twenty pounds she lent me to get here,” he grumbled. “She’s a good gal—a regular trump. She’d ha’ raised it somehow. She knows I’d pay her back—I’d send it to her from America. Poor little Let—she’ll miss me like the devil.”
“Bu
t Nils—didn’t you know—” Val was so startled that the words escaped her before she had reflected. “Letty’s dead!”
He stopped and gaped at her—they were walking on the snowy beach—as if her words made no sense. Then he said peevishly, “What can you know about it? I mean Letty Pettigrew.”
“I know; I met her. She told me where the children were lodged. But she’s dead, Nils; she was killed by—by the Bermondsey Beast. Like the others. It was in the papers.”
At that, Nils showed the first signs of compassion she had ever seen in him; he began to swear, helplessly, childishly, and then, turning away from her, buried his face in his hands and sobbed. After a minute, though, whirling round on her, he cried out, “But that means he knows—”
“Knows what?”
“Where I am! He’s sure to have got it out of Letty—don’t you see?—you’ve got to give me the money to get away!”
“Oh Nils, don’t be so foolish. How could you possibly travel in your present condition? God knows I have no wish to keep you here. But you are too weak. And I have only ten pounds until I get paid for some of my work—”
Besides, she was going on to say, you have a public duty to give evidence.
But Nils was not paying any attention to her. He was staring over her shoulder, out to sea, with his mouth open, and a stunned, almost stupid expression on his face, incredulity and resignation mixed.
Oh dear God; now what is it he thinks he sees? Val wondered, in alarm and impatience; if he takes a notion to see the Kelpie down here and falls into a fit on the beach, how shall I ever get him back to the house?
But then her ears caught the creak of rowlocks and she turned in astonishment to see the dark outline of a dinghy which came looming out of the fog, quite close in, rowing toward the shore.
“That’s not Mungo? Benet can’t have come by boat—” she exclaimed, and then broke off.
A couple of the seven or eight men aboard now jumped out into shallow water and dragged the boat up on to the beach. Another man, wrapped in a dark boat cloak, then stepped out and walked toward Nils, who remained rooted, staring, speechless, as if his will were paralysed. Then he began to back slowly up the beach.
Val, too, watching, huddling her plaid tightly round her, was fascinated by the almost dreamlike quality of the scene—this scene which, in a way, she felt she had brought on Nils by forcing him to come out of the house. And, in a way, he did not seem altogether terrified, but almost relieved—as if, knowing that this moment must come, he was glad to have the waiting over. As if he were glad to see his friend—for Lord Clanreydon it was, who came crunching over the snow towards them, until he stood about six paces away from Nils.
The rowers had followed quietly behind, and now spread into a rough circle round the pair; they were swarthy, dark-eyed, dark-bearded men; Lord Clanreydon gave them a quiet order in a guttural language and they closed their circle slightly; Val noticed, almost with disbelief, that they had pistols through their belts.
“Well, my dear Nils! I have caught up with you again,” Clanreydon said calmly. “You seem surprised to see me here? Did you not expect it?”
His strange wide-set eyes were fixed on Nils; of Val, he took no notice at all, and she remained silent, looking at her brother, who still said nothing.
The two men were of similar build, though Nils was half a head taller, and, seeing them together Val began to feel that there was a queer resemblance between them, the sort of shadowy mirror-likeness that sometimes draws two people together, and is then fostered by proximity, like the similarities between married persons. They stood in an aura of their own, formed from their reacting energies—hate, perhaps rivalry—admiration, perhaps love. Each man seemed curiously burnished by the other’s presence.
“Didn’t you appreciate, my dear fellow,” Clanreydon said, smiling almost affectionately at Nils, “that I was bound to follow you here?”
And Nils smiled back; he answered quite calmly, with an almost teasing note of gaiety, “But what about your pleasure cruise to Patmos and Izmir? What about all your guests? Won’t they be disappointed?”
“Oh, that cruise was a bore. I have given up the notion. Who wants to be out of town for two months? I came up the coast instead—a fitting-out trip. The minute my people here told me that you had arrived—”
People? Val wondered. Then, glancing away, she saw two more groups, at either end of the beach—men wearing plaids, and carrying cudgels, the tinklers. He commands a whole army, Val thought vaguely; why hadn’t I thought of that? He is a man of high administrative ability.
“So, this time, dear boy,” Clanreydon went on, “produce the papers, will you? Very agile and plucky, your sporting jump over the side, but I can’t be fobbed off twice; where are the papers?”
“Why should you think they would be here?” rejoined Nils carelessly.
“Because I know you, dear boy, as well as—or shall we say a deal better than I know my own mother! You would never be parted from those articles. They are here.”
“Well, they ain’t!” retorted Nils with febrile impudence. “I posted them off to Selkirk’s. Or to the Knuckle.”
Clanreydon shook his head. “That won’t wash, my dear friend. Now, look about you—I have these men with me who are both obedient and discreet; as well as several more on the yacht. You can’t get away from here; the tinklers guard the paths. We know you have posted off nothing. I want you to come with me on the ship—and, just to ensure that the whole scurrilous, trouble-making business does not start up once more, I want the papers too. Otherwise, my men are quite capable of taking that house apart stone by stone, I promise you.”
“Take it apart, then!” Nils rejoined unperturbedly. “It ain’t my house. I don’t care! But the papers are not there. Val will tell you the same—I had no papers on me when I arrived here.”
And it’s true, he doesn’t care, thought Val in a rage. He cares nothing for the house—or the children—or anybody but himself.
Clanreydon glanced her way for the first time.
“Miss Montgomery—such a helpful, energetic lady—” the pale eyes swept her with dislike. “I’m afraid I couldn’t believe even her endorsement of what you say, dear boy.”
“Nils—for God’s sake—” said Val urgently. “Give him the papers, if you have them, if that will make him go—”
“Ah, I’m afraid that wouldn’t answer, quite; no, I need both Nils and the papers. And, I am sorry to say, you, my dear lady as well—”
Now, for the first time, Val began to appreciate the deadly danger implicit in this extraordinary scene.
She glanced out to sea. There, dimly visible through the fog which kept clearing and then thickening again, was the outline of a yacht, the Dragonfly presumably, which had cost its owner a cool three-quarter million with curtains and carpets.
They were caught in a trap, here, in Ardnacarrig bay, Nils, and herself—and what about Elspie, Mungo, and the children? Or anybody who happened to interfere with Clanreydon’s intentions?
“We will go up to the house,” Clanreydon said, “and your sister will help us locate the papers.”
“No she won’t!” said Nils.
Clanreydon compressed his lips. At his first arrival, at his first cool remark, Val had felt the same shock of dislike as on their two previous encounters, but, as well, she had come up against a barrier of incredulity. Could this quiet-spoken suave individual be what Nils asserted he was—a hideous murderer who dismembered women in dark by-streets? Or could Nils be holding an invented threat over his head, which, in the perilous world of politics, might do just as much damage as if the story were true?
But at the continued defiance of Nils a red spark of anger began to burn in Clanreydon’s eyes and Val realised, with a cold prickle of fear, that she did, in fact, believe him capable of any savagery.
At that moment the sound of can
tering hoofs made them all turn their heads. To Val, the interruption came as no relief; on the contrary, she drew a breath of desperate apprehension. For she knew who the rider must be, and she could see no possible good outcome from his arrival.
“Hollo!” said David Ramsay, cheerfully riding up to the group on his dripping mare. “Here’s a crowd, here’s company! I saw the ship as I came round the point. Ah, you have your brother out-of-doors, that’s capital,” he said to Val. “The air will do him more good than all that moping indoors. How do you do, sir?” he said to Clanreydon. “You, I assume, are the owner of that fine ship out there. She is a deal handsomer, I may say, than any craft that usually sail our waters! But don’t I know you?” he went on, a faintly puzzled expression flitting over his face. “You seem so familiar—your face—have we met in Cambridge or—”
Clanreydon shot him, quite calmly, at six-foot range. He fell instantly, pitching off his mare into the snow. The mare whinnied, reared, and bolted. Val screamed, and rushed forward to David, who was lying on his back. And Nils, taking advantage of the second’s confusion, bolted for the azalea hedge and disappeared behind it. Several shots were fired after him but none hit him. Half a dozen sailors started in pursuit but he easily outdistanced them. He could run like the wind.
Clanreydon let out one sharp expletive, then drew a long breath, deliberately reining in his anger, and proceeded to reload his pistol.
“That was a very stupid thing to do,” he remarked sourly. “My men will only treat him the more roughly when they catch him—which they are bound to do.”
Val ignored this. She had dropped on her knees in the snow beside Ramsay and was frantically doubling her plaid into a bandage.
“Where does it hurt, Davie? Where did the bullet go? You’re bleeding—let me tie this—”
“Nothing you can do—my dear girl—too bad—shan’t get back to the lab now—” and he coughed blood and died.
For a moment Val could not believe it.
“Davie!”
But he was gone. She sprang to her feet, with tears pouring down her cheeks. Clanreydon, clicking shut the magazine of his pistol, calmly met her blazing look.