Wolfe was silent, frowning.
Eric leaned across the table towards him. “That’s three people with everything to lose unless someone were put away for the murder before the truth can come out. I don’t think I have to explain to you where you stand in this scheme.”
Wolfe grimaced. He sat for a long time, thinking, and Eric let him. Finally, he said, “And you want to tell me you’re my last hope, do you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Taking a page from Wolfe’s book, Eric cleaned and inspected his nails, as if this assertion were of no particular consequence to himself. When Wolfe snorted in derision, he glanced up and said, “Who are you, Wolfe? You’re not Lord Oliver Saxon. You’re not the president of the Britannia Club. You haven’t got Parker’s Victoria Cross, and you haven’t a web of connections spanning the Empire. You’re not one of Bradshaw’s precious broken toy soldiers. You’re … expendable.”
Wolfe reddened. “And you’re not?”
“Oh, I absolutely am. We’re in the same boat, you and I. But you see, I’m on this side of the table.”
“Do you expect me to beg, Peterkin?”
“No, Wolfe. I expect you to be sensible.”
“Be a good boy and tell you everything I know, is that it? I could do that, but … I don’t know.” Wolfe watched Eric with narrowed eyes for a moment, then whispered, “You want me to help you, fine. But I want you to tell me why. Why do you care, Peterkin? What was Benson to you? I fought to keep him out of the Britannia, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Benson may not have fought, per se, but he saved a lot of lives as a stretcher-bearer. He deserved a lot better than a knife in his neck.”
“And Emily Ang? Oh, I don’t have to ask, do I? She was one of your people.”
Eric kept his face impassive. “You don’t strike down a lady and have her buried in a shallow, unmarked grave in the middle of the woods. That goes against all common decency, Wolfe. You don’t sweep people under the carpet, whoever they are.”
“How very high-minded of you!”
Eric sat up and placed his hands flat on the table. He said, “I’m safe where I am, Wolfe. And I could go on being safe, but I don’t see anyone else here sticking their necks out for the Bensons or for Emily Ang. Or, come to that, for you.”
Wolfe stared at him some more, then let out a low, appreciative chuckle. “Maybe so, Peterkin. Maybe so. In any case, only a fool turns away reinforcements.” The smug, superior look faded away, leaving a focused earnestness in its place. This was Wolfe preparing for a new exploit, and his voice when he spoke was as crisp as if he were discussing battle plans. “All right, Peterkin. What do you need to know?”
“I need to know about the day Emily died. I think you were in the quarantine ward when it happened; I recognised it from the windows by your bed in a photograph Emily took. You were there for illness, not injury … something treated with morphine.”
“Pneumonia. It put quite a damper on my social life, let me tell you. But this was all six years ago. What makes you think I’d remember a single blessed thing?”
“Did someone come to you at some point with a briefcase full of cryptic little notes, asking for your expertise in translating them?”
Wolfe’s brow went up a fraction of an inch to show his unmitigated surprise. Something almost like admiration sparked in his eyes as well, and he said, “Clever, Peterkin! You really are surprisingly good at this. Yes. Parker did. But I thought you said Parker couldn’t be trusted?”
“I want to know what happened.”
Wolfe closed his eyes, remembering. “I recall being bored out of my mind. Parker showing up was a godsend, and even more so when I understood what he wanted help with. Very little of it was intelligible; most of it was nonsense. There were two documents that looked like German military orders—troop movements, attack plans, that sort of thing. Parker was sure he’d found a spy. That’s when the beams of a motorcar’s headlamps flashed through the window, and Parker got this look of alarm. He said, ‘They’re back,’ and then he stuffed all the papers back into the briefcase. He caught up a fireplace poker and marched out as though he were preparing to confront the kaiser himself.”
“What happened after that?”
Wolfe opened his eyes. “I don’t know. Parker didn’t come back.”
Eric remembered the door to what had once been the quarantine ward, and later Helen’s studio. It was thick enough to have shut out most of the confrontation between Saxon and Parker.
“I’d copied down one of the more puzzling bits from the briefcase,” Wolfe continued. “I’d only just worked out that the numbers referred to Bible passages when the nurse came in to give me my morphine shot.” He frowned. “Did you say it was the same day when that Ang woman disappeared? Because she was the nurse who came in. I remember that. She was in her civvies. I told her to give me an hour before the shot, and asked if there were a German Bible in the house.”
“A German Bible?”
“Of course a German Bible, Peterkin. If these passages were part of a German message, it stands to reason that the key would be in a German Bible, wouldn’t it? I remember twisting Matthew 10:39 into every permutation of German I could—”
Eric gave a start of recognition. Matthew 10:39 was the Bible reference inscribed on his father’s gravestone, and Eric belatedly remembered that he’d meant to look it up. Avery would have called it an omen.
“‘He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it,’” quoted Wolfe. “Don’t look so surprised, Peterkin. My mother was a clergyman’s daughter, with all the pious priggishness that entails. She made sure I and my siblings could rattle off reams of the Bible at the drop of a hat.”
“I’m sorry. Did she come back? Emily, I mean.”
“No. I was quite peeved about it. I didn’t get my morphine shot until the next morning, and it’s a good thing I didn’t cough myself to death in the middle of the night.”
Eric sat back, thinking. The story was getting clearer, and he could see the part played by each of the men involved. Each of them had contributed, some unwittingly, to the final tragedy, and each of them was reflected in the details surrounding it.
“Do you remember,” Eric said, “anything about Emily’s manner that evening?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I remember nothing out of the ordinary. She had that calm, brisk manner all nurses have—it’s drilled into them, I swear. We spoke a bit about the Bible references I’d deciphered. She’d been raised by missionaries, apparently, and knew the faith better than most Englishwomen I know. She was even able to correct me on some of the passages I’d pulled up from memory.”
Their eyes met across the table: just two men watching each other’s back as they searched for a way out of no-man’s-land.
“What do you plan to do with this information, Peterkin?”
“I’ll want all the concerned parties in the same room when I put forth my idea of the truth,” Eric said. “I’ve already told Saxon I want a hearing about this motion to expel me from the Britannia; that’ll be as good a time as any.”
Wolfe smirked. “Still on about that, are you? I don’t blame you. But I’m still here behind bars, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. Bradshaw isn’t the only one with a string or two he can pull.”
DENOUEMENT
THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, Wednesday, was Bonfire Night. In 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested for his part in a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament; since then, he’d been burnt in effigy in an annual remembrance of the event.
Piles of wood and junk were going up everywhere for the bonfires. The hulking heaps loomed in the darkness, something primal and barbaric in their promise of festive destruction. There was one in the park not far from Eric’s flat, and the Guys that had haunted the local streets over the past week were now converging there in their various carts and wagons, their hollow-eyed masks grinning emptily at their funeral p
yres.
Gunpowder, treason, and plot. Only the first was figurative in his case, Eric thought as he set his jaw and climbed the front steps of the Britannia. Like Fawkes, there was no turning back for him.
The Britannia Club was nearly empty. Most members gave the excuse that they wished to spend Bonfire Night with their families, but in truth, they simply didn’t care to brave the streets while fireworks were going off like shells and gunfire overhead. The staff had been reduced as well. Everyone knew it would be a slow night.
Eric nodded to Old Faithful, glanced up to the Arthurian Knights painting on the landing, saluted King Pellinore and Sir Palomides, then made his way to the back of the dining room.
There was a room here for private parties. It had a bow window looking out to the back of the building and was separated from the rest of the dining room by a pair of sliding doors. Eric had asked that the dining table be moved to one side, leaving the middle of the floor open. Chairs had been arranged here, in a semicircle under the chandelier, and Eric paced the parquet flooring before them.
The first to arrive was Bradshaw. He looked, unsmiling, at Eric’s empty hands and said, “Not subjecting the silverware to idle scrutiny, Peterkin? You must be taking this seriously. I just hope you don’t expect this to actually amount to anything.”
“All I ask is your word that I be allowed to finish saying my piece.”
Bradshaw peered at him suspiciously. “My word, is it?”
“For my father’s sake.”
Bradshaw considered, then shrugged. “As you wish. I give you my word. But there’ll be no second chances, so don’t waste it.”
Aldershott arrived soon after. Mrs. Aldershott was with him—an irregularity, but Eric had asked her and she’d insisted, and Aldershott had submitted with bad grace. He simply sat down now and folded his arms in the attitude of one who has no intention of changing his mind. Mrs. Aldershott, meanwhile, gave Eric a sympathetic look before joining her husband.
Saxon was right behind them. He dropped an apple core into a nearby urn, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and came up to Eric to say, in a low voice so the others didn’t hear, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Peterkin. This isn’t really about your membership, is it?”
Eric shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Don’t disgrace yourself.” Saxon gave him a curt nod and went to sit beside Mrs. Aldershott.
Norris stumbled in a few minutes later. He’d been cleaned up and dressed, and brought to the doorstep of the Britannia in a taxicab. Thanks to Dr. Filgrave, he looked very much his old self again, and no one would have guessed he’d been anything else.
Looking with some disappointment at the bare dining table, Norris said, “This really is a sad state of affairs, Peterkin. I’ll challenge this motion if you like—for Penny’s sake, if nothing else—but I really thought you’d at least bring out the good wine to thank me for it.”
“I still might, Norris.”
Norris brightened up at that and sat down near the door to the serving pantry.
There was one empty chair left. “Are you expecting Wolfe?” Bradshaw asked. “You know he’s in police custody at the moment.”
The sliding doors parted with a whistle of oiled rollers, and Wolfe strode in. He lit a cigarette—milking the moment for all its dramatic potential—and said, “Honestly, Bradshaw, how long have I ever been detained in anyone’s custody? It took a little longer this time, but these were British policemen.”
Wolfe settled into his seat and gave Eric a regal nod. “All right, Peterkin,” he said. “We’re all here. Tell us why we shouldn’t boot you like a public school football.” He had to be aware of the curiosity his presence aroused, and he was revelling in it.
“Actually,” Eric said, eyeing his audience, “I think I’d much rather solve a murder.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—” Aldershott sprang to his feet, only to be pulled down again by his wife.
“Language, Edward,” she warned him. She was straight-backed and stern, like one of the formidable night-shift matrons Eric had seen at the Royal West Sussex Hospital. “And sit. I want to hear this.”
“Martha, I don’t even know why you insisted on being here.” He looked around. “Are the rest of you going to stand for this?”
“I gave Peterkin my word I’d hear him out,” Bradshaw said.
“I’d like to hear Peterkin out too,” Saxon said, peering owlishly back at Aldershott.
“Yes,” said Wolfe. “Do sit down, Aldershott. I didn’t waste money on the cab fare here just to see you walk out.”
“Fine, then.” Aldershott sat down again, surlier than before. “Let’s get this farce over with.”
The doors were closed. The chandelier cast a circle of light around Eric, with the others sitting around its edge. It was time, thought Eric.
He cleared his throat. “Just under two weeks ago, Albert Benson walked into the Britannia Club as a new member. Up in the club lounge, he entered into a bet that Wolfe couldn’t liberate the contents of his vault box. The next day, he was dead. Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but after having it drilled into me that there have always been Peterkins at the Britannia, I got to feeling a certain responsibility for what goes on around here. And when I saw the investigating officer, Horatio Parker, removing key evidence from Benson’s room, let us just say it did not fill me with the greatest confidence in the likelihood of our fellow member getting the justice and respect due to him as a human being.”
Nobody leapt up to ask why he didn’t report Parker to the authorities. They were all familiar enough with the story already.
“This is not a case of one murder, but three,” Eric said. “Aside from Albert Benson, his wife, whom most of you might remember as Helen Sotheby, died of smoke inhalation last Friday when someone drugged her and left her in a burning room. And six years ago, a nurse by the name of Emily Ang was killed at Sotheby Manor, her body buried some distance away in Bruton Wood. The three are related. Benson was struck down because he was searching for the truth behind Emily’s murder, and Mrs. Benson was killed because it was thought that her husband might have revealed something to her before he came here. So the real question is, who killed Emily?”
Saxon and Mrs. Aldershott exchanged glances. They knew this was coming, though it was hard to see if they were sitting up with trepidation or anticipation. Norris appeared a little bemused by developments; the others wore the stony expressions of men marching into battle.
“Benson knew that Emily hadn’t simply disappeared; she’d died. And he knew that she’d been buried in a shallow grave in Bruton Wood. He knew this because he’d been the one to bury her.”
“What?” exclaimed Mrs. Aldershott. “Impossible. If he’d done that, then why was he asking questions at all? Shouldn’t he have known what happened?”
“I thought he might have felt guilty about something,” Saxon said, “but … I don’t understand.”
Had Eric not been watching Aldershott, he would have missed the near-imperceptible frown Aldershott directed at Bradshaw. Eric nodded to Saxon and said, “He thought he knew, but then he found something to challenge his assumptions. So, what were his assumptions? What did he find that day six years ago, the day Emily Ang was last seen alive, having missed Helen Sotheby’s party and vanished into thin air? Picture this: the nurses’ station at Sotheby Manor. There’s a small cot with a metal bedstead, and a desk against the wall. Emily Ang is lying on the floor, dead from two strong blows to the head, fracturing her skull in two places. And lying half out of the cot is Horatio Parker, unconscious and bleeding from a facial wound. The conclusion seems obvious: Parker attacked Emily, perhaps in a raging fit induced by shell shock, and was wounded in the face when she defended herself. He killed her, then lost consciousness. As for what caused that facial wound, there was a pair of surgical scissors nearby. Clearly, that had been Emily’s weapon in her self-defence.”
“That’s utter rubbish,” Saxon declared. “I told you�
�”
Eric waved him down. “We’ll get to that, Saxon. Don’t worry.” He continued, “Benson did not make this discovery alone. Others were with him—others who decided they had to save Parker from the hangman’s noose. Emily had been hit twice in the head; they couldn’t disguise that as an accident. They had to make her disappear.” He paused, and added, more conversationally, “Mrs. Aldershott said something quite interesting to me about this once. She said that the cruel thing about disappearances is that you never get to grieve until it’s too late. That’s how it’s been for Emily’s loved ones. And Emily herself? Benson went to Saxon in hopes that Saxon’s social position might help in reclaiming her remains for a proper burial, but that’s not such an easy thing to accomplish, is it?”
“Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were lost in the War,” Aldershott said, sitting absolutely still. “Tens of thousands were never given the appropriate rites.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
Aldershott’s mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. Beside him, Mrs. Aldershott wiped away a tear. Saxon, meanwhile, seemed ready to burst.
“Emily was dead,” Eric said. “Nothing could bring her back. But Parker was alive. Parker was a hero in line for the Victoria Cross. He was a good man. This wasn’t a conscious choice, and he couldn’t be held responsible. Was it right that he should hang? The men who’d discovered the scene with Benson made a decision, and I think it was a difficult one. They chose the living.” He looked at Aldershott. “You chose the living.”
Aldershott looked back at him. His eyes were slits that gave away nothing, and his jaw remained bonded in place.
“You were there that day. You were friendly with Sir Andrew Sotheby and could obtain access to Parker’s files. You had a motorcar with which to transport the body to Bruton Wood. And you owed Parker your life.”
It was not an accusation. It was a statement of debts paid and of a choice between two evils. Aldershott met Eric’s eyes, and remorse flickered behind the granite facade.
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