by Janice Law
Breathing shallowly to thwart the dust, I went over to the stable. I looked in each stall but found them empty. Obviously the farmer employed his own animals. Everything was so quiet and ordinary that I figured my uncle had given me the job to keep me out of the way.
Between the stable and the house, a ragged clump of lilacs provided cover, and with my nose streaming from the hay, dust, and dander of horses past, I moved through them. When I was within a few yards of the house, I saw a faint light in the front room. I crept toward the window and risked a glance. In the light of the oil lamp, I saw Jules was tied to a chair. He had blood on his face and on his shirt, but he was conscious and clearly furious. Inessa’s hands were bound behind her, and Alexi, who had an ugly-looking pistol with a long narrow barrel, was speaking loudly and urgently to her in Russian.
Inessa kept shaking her head until Alexi stepped up to Jules and put the pistol to his head.
She gave a shriek. He turned at the sound, and I ducked. More conversation in Russian followed. I guessed that Alexi was making her an offer for Jules’s life, and her expressive voice, high and despairing, told me that the price was a painful one.
I risked another glance before a rustle nearby nearly sent me running. Uncle Lastings beckoned me across to the other side of the door, where we would both be hidden when it opened. I crouched beside him, very conscious of my noisy breathing and galloping heart, which had not slowed one bit before the door opened.
Inessa stepped out, weeping, with Alexi right behind her. But he’d made a mistake, one I realized with a start that my uncle had counted on. Secure in his triumph, Alexi had holstered his pistol, and before he could turn to close the door, Uncle Lastings struck his head with the Webley.
“Run, Inessa!” I shouted.
She leaped away despite her bound hands, but as soon as she realized that Alexi was on the ground, she lunged back into the house to Jules. My uncle deftly lifted Alexi’s pistol from his shoulder holster, snapped a pair of handcuffs on him, and hauled the unconscious Russian into the house. “Go fetch Pavel,” he said.
I ran down the drive toward the road, calling in relief and excitement, “Come quick! Inessa is safe!”
He bolted up the drive faster than I could manage. By the time I got to the house, Pavel was locked in his sister’s arms, Jules was untied, and he and my uncle were discussing Alexi, who was lying, still dazed, on the floor. Jules was all for bundling him into the car and driving straight to the gendarme station.
This didn’t suit my uncle for a number of reasons, and he changed the subject as soon as he saw me. “You might have brought up the van,” he said, before I reminded him that I can’t drive.
He gave me a haughty look as if I was his unsatisfactory batman, but in the delay, he had made up his mind. He handed Jules Alexi’s sidearm and told him to take the van with Inessa and Pavel. “Keep going,” he said. “Let your sister know you’re all right and clear out.” Then, seeing Alexi stir, he steered Jules to the door for more quiet advice. I saw my friend nod. He shook hands with my uncle before embracing me. “Merci bien, Francis.”
Inessa kissed me in turn. Pavel clasped my shoulder, and after a quick, unreadable glance at Alexi, he handed me his knife. “In case you need it,” he said, touching my shoulder again before my uncle hurried them away. We watched from the doorway, and Uncle Lastings didn’t relax until we heard the van toot at the end of the drive.
“What now?” I asked.
My uncle shrugged and held out his hand for Pavel’s knife. He wrapped the blade in a handkerchief before slipping it in a pocket of my coveralls. He lowered his voice. “I expect Horace very soon. I hope before the gendarmes arrive. They could be awkward.”
“Why can’t we take Alexi with us and turn him over later? Or leave him here?” Tranquil pastoral scenes have always spelled trouble for me, and I very much wanted to be away. “We could take his car, couldn’t we?”
“It would be better to have Horace pick us up and leave Alexi’s vehicle as a little mystery for the gendarmes.” Nonetheless, my uncle consulted his watch and frowned.
Behind us we heard motion, Alexi struggling to his knees. Just then, a car came up the drive. “Ah,” said my uncle. “All is tickety-boo. That will be Horace. He can take charge of Alexi, and you and I can disappear.”
He went eagerly to the door, but when he opened it, I saw his back stiffen.
“Stephen,” he said.
I caught a glimpse of silver hair, scarred face, upright carriage—all last seen at the embassy recital. This was bad. I glanced toward the back of the house, and I may even have taken a step in that direction, because I admit I was tempted to abandon my uncle and make a quick exit. A burst of angry Russian from Alexi stopped me.
Stephen Byrone, he of the silver hair, heavy presence, and uncertain loyalties, answered fluently before casting a chilly eye on yours truly. “Who is this boy, Lastings? And what is he doing here.”
“A victim of a kidnapping. I really should say of a shanghaiing. Once he was freed, I could not safely leave him behind.”
Another burst of Russian. No doubt a different account from Alexi’s perspective.
“And the other boy?” I sensed that Byrone was trying for indifference and not quite managing. “This—Pavel Lagunov? Where is he?”
I expected more Russian, but when Alexi was silent, I said, “The blond boy? He’s dead.”
My uncle gave me a look but didn’t contradict me. More surprisingly, neither did Alexi.
“He was caught in the explosion. The tunnel collapsed. We should both have been killed, but I got away.” In the tunnel and in the Louvre and with all the excitements afterward, I’d managed to forget that or at least keep it to the back of my mind. Now it was front and center. I remembered the shock of the explosion, the clouds of ancient dust and mildew, the black unwholesome pools, the Seine running overhead, and my voice trembled.
Byrone’s face relaxed subtly. “You should have died,” he said, “but we can rectify that.” The gun was out of his pocket before any of us could react. “You are armed, I think, Lastings. Do put your hands up very carefully.” He moved, with a peculiar slithery action, around my uncle and slipped a hand into his shoulder holster for the Webley. Then he stepped back and motioned for me to move next to Uncle Lastings. He kept the gun on us.
“Sorry, lad.” My uncle put a consoling arm around me. Byrone jerked his head in warning, and Uncle Lastings released me but not before he’d slipped the knife from my pocket. I froze, hardly daring to breathe, but he must somehow have gotten the weapon into his sleeve, because there was no clatter of metal on the floor and no reaction from Byrone, either. My uncle stepped aside, seemingly focused on Alexi, who had gotten to his feet and was impatiently demanding to have his handcuffs removed.
Byrone had a different idea and asked a question. Alexi shook his head and quite surprisingly answered in English. “Is gone with the Frenchman,” he said.
Surely he referred to that ominous Russian pistol.
“That’s unfortunate,” said Byrone. “But I can improvise.”
Alexi lurched toward him. Byrone took a step back, gesturing with the Webley, and had him move to the other side of the room. My uncle cleared his throat. “Even if you have prevented Horace from coming, the gendarmes are expected. They will not take kindly to an assault on a respectable family. You and Alexi should clear out now.”
Alexi said something in Russian, doubtless in support of this idea.
Byrone shook his silver head. It really belonged on a portrait bust somewhere or on a nice high-denomination coin. “The operation has been successfully concluded. All that remains now is to remove the evidence. You should not have interfered, Lastings.”
He raised the pistol.
“If you shoot us, Horace will certainly be suspicious,” my uncle said. I noticed that he had moved another step away from me.
“But all the witnesses will be gone. Our little trap has disappeared, leaving a handful of com
promised attachés and diplomats, who will be most useful. I will, of course, be investigating the sad case of two British subjects murdered by a Soviet agent.”
“Using a British sidearm?” my uncle asked. He’d moved another step away so that he, Alexi, and I were in a rough triangle.
Alexi became agitated. He moved toward the door, doubtless counting on the idea that a man shot in the back would hardly be a good murder suspect. Byrone shouted a warning, and when it was ignored, he reached for Alexi’s handcuffs to turn him around. Focused on the Russian, he lowered the revolver for an instant, and I grabbed his wrist.
The revolver discharged with such a tremendous blast that I fell on the floor, a good thing, too, because my uncle leaped over me to send Pavel’s knife into Byrone’s ribs. A scream and the thump of their bodies before they landed on the floor. They struggled over the Webley until Alexi kicked Byrone in the head with all his strength, lost his balance, and toppled onto the others. The revolver discharged once more, the bullet ricocheting off the base of the oil lamp before an odd silence, broken only by gasps and groans.
My uncle sat up, followed by Alexi, who got to his knees and swung his legs around so that he could lean against the doorjamb. He was quite white and his eyes seemed imperfectly focused. Uncle Lastings had blood on his hands and also on his face from a nasty groove where a bullet had plowed across his cheek. Byrone did not get up, though his chest was heaving. There was enough blood about to make me feel rather sick, and I did not see how he could survive.
I looked at my uncle, who shrugged. “He dies for sure if we remove the knife.”
“Let me go,” said Alexi. “I can be gone and no questions.”
My uncle hesitated. I know by now that nothing is ever simple with him, there are always angles within angles, and I do not know what he would have decided if we had not heard a large vehicle pulling up the drive. I looked out the window. “The gendarmes,” I said.
Uncle Lasting shook his head with what might have been regret but might have been satisfaction, too—Alexi, after all, had tried to kill him. “Too late now,” he said.
Chapter Sixteen
The gendarmes arrived, three earnest men with short hair, snappy uniforms, and a preemptory manner that hid neither their youth nor inexperience. Uncle Lastings spotted this right off and put on his best colonel of the regiment voice. “This,” he said, pointing to Alexi, “is the man who attacked Madeline Dumoulin and her son, Luc. He is a Russian agent. And this is a British intelligence officer. They will both be of interest to the British embassy and the Deuxième Bureau. I trust you liaise with both.”
The gendarme officer looked around the room, took in the pool of blood, Alexi’s handcuffs, my costume, and the general disorder. “And who might you be?”
My uncle gave our names and identified us as “friends and acquaintances of Madame Dumoulin, whom we found bound and beaten.”
I give the officer credit. If his men looked flummoxed, he recovered enough to observe, “You made an early visit.”
“We had reason to be concerned about her welfare,” Uncle Lastings said smoothly. “But this man needs medical attention. He’s been stabbed.”
“By whom?”
“By me,” said Uncle Lastings. “Before he could shoot the three of us. That’s his Webley on the floor. My own sidearm is somewhere about his person.”
Well, talk about a hullabaloo. The gendarmes had a Russian national who was denying everything and pretending not to speak a word of French. They had my uncle, who’d confessed to grievous bodily harm. They had Stephen Byrone, a British spy, who was probably dying. And they had me, clearly foreign but dressed as a French janitor and looking as if I’d had a run through the sewers.
My uncle wanted them to contact the Deuxième Bureau and our embassy tout de suite. When they balked at this, he clammed up about the situation, but he did add that as I was underage, the embassy should be notified. I have to admit that he was eloquent on my behalf. He subtracted three years and a whole lot of experience from his favorite nephew, and if he hadn’t been interrupted, I think I’d have come off as a male version of Little Nell.
But the gendarmes realized Byrone’s condition was beyond their first aid skills, and after a few frantic minutes, we were all loaded into the van, Alexi still handcuffed. In deference to my supposed age and innocence, I was put in front beside the driver. The officer and the second gendarme sat in the back with my uncle, Alexi, and Byrone, who after a jolting ride over the country roads, was delivered to the nearest hospital more or less dead. I didn’t feel too chipper myself.
I didn’t improve until late in the day, when I was plucked from the gendarmerie by an embassy official. I’d spent most of the time in a locked room, one step up from a cell, with a cup of coffee and a baguette for company. I put my arms on the table and my head on my arms and fell asleep. At one point, the officer who had picked us up visited me. I declined to answer further questions without someone from the embassy, claiming that my French was inadequate. That was actually true, but I’m not sure my English would have unraveled the whole thing, either.
Finally, late in the afternoon, salvation appeared in the shape of Willington, my nostalgic friend from the reception at the embassy. The door opened, and in he came, blond and handsome, complete with attaché case, striped suit, and an air of effortless perfection. I was to be released. That was excellent. Into his custody. That might or might not be good.
“Where’s Uncle Horace?” I asked. It was quite possible that I was no longer his nephew, but he still should have answered my real uncle’s call for help.
Willington cleared his throat and looked as uncomfortable as a well-trained diplomat could. “Horace has been taken ill,” he said.
Illness covers a multitude of sins. “Was he drinking?”
“Really!” said Willington. He had haughty indignation down to perfection.
“I’m here because I was drugged with a glass of wine.”
He gave me a look. “Horace has been known to take a drink, but we hadn’t considered that.”
“Better consider it now. And where’s Lastings? Is he all right?”
“He’s being questioned. We have someone with him. But you have been released.” He frowned. “We’ll need to get you cleaned up.”
I was about to tell him that all my clothes were at Lastings’s flat when I caught myself. Horace, for whatever reason, was out of commission. Uncle Lastings was being questioned. Alexi, I guessed, was awaiting a Russian translator, and Pavel was, for the moment, safely out of the way. Unless Chaput’s lost photographs were retrieved, there would be no proof that any of the embassy staff had been compromised by visiting the house on the rue Jacob. So unless Alexi talked or Pavel reappeared, I had no idea whom to trust.
I decided to insist on “Uncle” Horace and demanded he be informed immediately. “He’ll want to know where I am.” I imagined a concerned parent and added, “Mother will be frightfully angry with him about this. I think you’d better take me straight to the embassy.”
We were in the car by this time, and he sniffed and said I needed a change of clothes first. Where might mine be?
“Lost,” I said. “All quite ruined. Hence the coveralls.”
He wanted to know where I’d gotten them.
“I stole them. Needs must,” I said, sounding alarmingly like Uncle Lastings. I hadn’t realized how deception affects one’s speech. But I declined to tell him about the rue Jacob or the tunnel or anything else until I had some idea of what he knew and what he was up to.
“I might have something that would do you for the moment,” he said, and when we reached the city, he set his course not for the embassy, but for a building near Uncle Lastings’s flat. Willington had a top-floor apartment, just as spiffy and correct as his dress, and he had me leave my shoes and the coveralls at the door.
I agreed that I could do with a bath but, remembering the notorious Brides in the Bath case, I locked the door. There was plenty of hot w
ater. Marvelous. I watched the mud and scum of the tunnel spiral down the drain and got out and wrapped myself in a good Turkish towel. In some ways, I believe I could live like a diplomat.
Willington was waiting with underwear, a pair of slacks—clean but far too big—and a shirt—ditto. Prefects and rugby forwards come large. I dressed under his watchful—lecherous?—eye and announced my eagerness to see Uncle Horace.
Willington sat down and took a sip from a large glass of whiskey. “Horace Caruthers is not your uncle.”
I resorted to the Gallic shrug. “In a manner of speaking,” I said. “He and mother are related somehow.”
Willington shook his head. “My best guess is that you are one of Lastings’s bum boys.” He added a gimlet-eyed look of disapproval. “Introduced to embassy personnel for unknown reasons.”
I sat down and said nothing.
“Horace, as I’ve explained, is out of commission.”
“I can wait,” I said.
He sampled his drink again. “If released onto the street, you might be vulnerable.” He turned his wrist to check his watch. “Possibly you have no lodgings at the moment. Possibly you have enemies.”
“Possibly I can take care of myself.” I hoped I sounded confident and fearless. Willington no longer struck me as the golden prefect and rugby star but as the house bully who liked to wake smaller boys in the middle of the night for some humiliating prank.
“Look, we’re on the same side,” he said, sounding a more conciliatory note and pouring me a drink. “With Horace out of action, I’ve been charged with wrapping up the loose ends. We have a chat, you tell me what you know, I put you on the boat train. How would that be?”
I shook my head. “My passport is pretty much ruined.”
He flapped one hand. “That can be managed. I can see you have documents.”
“Too bad I don’t have any information for you.”
Willington sat very still. I could see the white of his knuckles as he gripped the whiskey glass. “The man you were arrested with, the Russian, was he known to you?”