“I thought I heard something,” she whispered. “Is he coming to?”
“I think so,” said Andrew.
Pierre moaned again. Then suddenly he sat bolt upright in bed.
“Le monstre!” he groaned, his eyes wide with terror. “Le monstre!”
“Does that mean what I think it means?” asked Sara.
“Yes. The monster!”
10
The Somerville Secret
Wyatt led the way into the police station, opened the door to the small room he had been using as an office and let Somerville precede him into it. His face drawn, Somerville sat down heavily in the chair in front of the desk.
“Would you care for some tea?” asked Wyatt.
“I’d rather have a drink,” said Somerville. “But since that’s probably impossible at this hour … Yes, I’d like some tea.”
Wyatt looked at Sergeant Tucker who nodded and went out, closing the door behind him.
“Do you want to begin now or would you rather wait until you’ve had your tea?”
“Begin what?”
“Don’t you agree that you owe me an explanation?”
“I don’t feel that I owe you anything!” said Somerville with a flash of temper.
“You do admit that you lied to me, misled me in several respects.”
“Yes, I do admit that.”
“Well, will you tell me the truth now?”
“About what?”
“About everything. Who the money in that bag was for, why you’re paying it and what you meant by saying that I had ruined you and loosed something deadly on London.”
“That certainly is everything,” said Somerville heavily. “And even though it won’t do any good, I suppose I should tell you the truth now. The question is where to begin.”
“Would it help any if I told you I know a little about you, your family background?”
“Yes, it would. In that case, I’ll begin with the first great change in my life—my marriage.”
“I understand that it was a very good marriage.”
“Good? It was a wonderful marriage. I’d known Louise for years. Her father, Lord Barham, was a friend of my father’s, and I’d always been in love with her, had no idea she was the least bit interested in me, and could hardly believe it when she accepted me. My mother was dead by then, but my father was still alive and he was almost as happy about it as I was.” He paused. “He was a very fortunate man. For when he died about three years later he knew we were going to have a child, and he was convinced that it was going to be a boy and that all was going to be well with the Randalls.”
“Was he wrong?”
“Yes,” said Somerville in a flat, uninflected voice. “He was wrong.”
Sergeant Tucker came in with three mugs of tea on a tray, gave one to Somerville and one to the inspector. At the same time he gave him a note. Wyatt read it, glanced at Tucker, who had sat down in the corner with his notebook on his knee, and nodded. Somerville took a sip of his tea, then put the mug down and forgot about it.
“I was in London when the child was born. I wish I hadn’t been, not that it would have made any difference in the end, but it wasn’t my fault that I was away. I was to read a paper at the Royal Society; the doctor had told me that the child was not due for about two weeks, so I went. The next morning I got a telegram telling me to come back, but we had had a terrible snowstorm in the meantime, and it was another day before I was able to get home, back to Ansley Cross. By the time I got there, our child had been born, a son. Louise had him in her arms. She looked up at me, smiled, then—as if that was what she had been waiting for—she died.”
“As a result of the delivery?”
“Yes. She was beautiful, intelligent, courageous, but not very strong. The doctor, Dr. Roberts, was a very good doctor, and he claimed he had done everything he could for her, but apparently it wasn’t enough.”
“That does happen occasionally.”
“Yes. I won’t try to tell you how I felt. Nothing meant anything to me anymore—nothing. Then I realized that that wasn’t fair. Louise had wanted a child even more than I had, and had given her life to have him. So I must learn to love the boy no matter how I felt about him at the moment.”
“You resented him?”
“Of course. I felt he was responsible for my wife’s death. So I decided to go away until I could accept him as I knew I should.”
“Where did you go?”
“To Mesopotamia—Tell Iswah. I had started a dig there several years before. As a matter of fact, Louise had been there with me for two seasons.”
“Who took care of the child?”
“Mrs. Severn. She was a local girl and had done some upstairs work at Greyhurst, mending and so on. When Louise learned that her husband had been sent to jail and that she was going to have a child too, she promptly engaged her to make our child’s layette, help out generally. She agreed to stay on, take care of the child and, as you know, she’s with me still.”
“Yes. What happened to her child?”
“Oh, it died a day or so before my son was born. We never discussed it; but in the light of the way she felt about Severn by that time, I don’t think she was as sorry about it as she might have been.”
“So you went to Mesopotamia. How long did you stay away?”
“For almost a year. When I came back, Mrs. Severn was … strange. She said the boy was fine, but there was something odd about the way she said it. I went up to see him and … at first I thought there was something wrong with me. That I couldn’t accept him as I should because of what had happened to Louise. Then I looked at Mrs. Severn, saw the way she was looking at me, and realized that the child was not normal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure I can tell you. It’s possible that no one can define the word normal exactly. But I knew—and I knew Mrs. Severn knew—that the boy was not like other children, either mentally or physically.”
“Did you consult a doctor about him?”
“Not then. Dr. Roberts, who had delivered him and who would normally have taken care of him, had moved away. But a year or two later, when there was no longer any questions as to the fact that there was something wrong with him, I made an appointment under an assumed name with a doctor in Harley Street, and Mrs. Severn and I took him there.”
“Why did you see him under an assumed name?”
“Because I did not want anyone—not even a doctor one could presumably trust—to know that my son, the heir to a title that goes back six hundred years, was a monster.”
“Was that what he was, a monster?”
“It’s what he was becoming. The doctor said that he could not tell me why or how it had happened, but that occasionally these things do happen. The signs, he said, were very clear. The boy would never be normal and, as time went by, he would become even more abnormal—a creature of more than human size and strength, but of no intelligence, not even so much as an animal. On our way back to Greyhurst, I discussed the matter with Mrs. Severn. She was quite fond of the boy, was able to handle him without any trouble, and we made our plans.
“What were they?”
“I had let most of the staff go when I went away after my wife’s death. Now I got rid of everyone else, except an elderly local woman to do the cooking and cleaning and a man to take care of the grounds. Mrs. Severn would take care of the boy, and if there were any inquiries—which was unlikely since I had been away so much that I had little to do with my neighbors—word was to be put out that the boy was not well and the doctors had left orders that he was not to have any visitors.”
“When did you have those bars put on the windows of his quarters?”
“A few years later. Mrs. Severn said that he was always good, never threatening or dangerous, but I was afraid of what might happen if he got out and left the grounds.”
“Did you see much of him during this time?”
“No. It was too painful, too disturbing. I
deliberately kept away from him, staying in Paris when I was not in Baghdad or Tell Iswah. But a few years ago, even though no questions had been asked, I began to be afraid that some might be, so I decided to make a change. I took the place in London and when I went down to Greyhurst to get him and Mrs. Severn, I spread the word that I was taking him to school in Switzerland.”
“That was how long ago—six years?”
“Yes.”
“Before we get to the present, I can’t help wondering why you went to all this expense, made these elaborate arrangements, when you could have done something very simple; put him in an institution somewhere, under another name if you liked, and say that he had died.”
“But how could I?” asked Somerville in honest astonishment. “No matter how difficult taking care of him might be, it was not his fault that he was what he was. And he is my son.”
“I see,” said Wyatt, looking at him with approval as well as sympathy. “Very well. Go on.”
“Well, as I said, I bought the house on Alder Road, fixed a secure place there for him and, about a year ago, I engaged Sergeant Polk to act as custodian, watchman, bodyguard—whatever you choose to call him.”
“Why did you feel that was necessary?”
“Because the boy was sixteen years old—as big and strong as a full grown man—and I was not sure Mrs. Severn could continue to handle him. Besides, after all his years in the army, I felt that Polk would be very useful in a crisis.”
“You told him the truth—who the creature was?”
“Yes. Your father said I could trust him completely, and I did. Well, about a fortnight ago there was a crisis. Mrs. Severn’s husband, Tom, suddenly appeared. She told you about that when you came to the house after Polk was killed.”
“Yes. He wanted money and when she wouldn’t give him any, he turned nasty and it was only when Polk came to the door and said he’d call the police that he left.”
“That’s right. Mrs. Severn knew him, knew how his mind worked, and had a feeling that she hadn’t seen the last of him, so she sent me a telegram suggesting I’d better come here from Paris. But by the time I got here there’d been another incident—the watchdog I’d brought here from Greyhurst had been killed.”
“I’m sure you know the reason for that now.”
“I think so. Something—either Mrs. Severn’s manner or Polk’s presence—gave Severn the feeling that she was hiding something, and he decided he’d get inside the house in some way and find out what it was.”
“Exactly. He had a confederate named Gann who was a chimney sweep. He sent him around to solicit work and, when Mrs. Severn wouldn’t let him in, he resorted to other methods. He poisoned your watchdog, and probably using a rope, climbed over the wall surrounding your grounds. Your son was in the small house in the garden?”
“Yes. I had had it specially built for him. Severn must have looked through the window, seen him and guessed who he was and why he was being kept there. Because the day after I got here I received a note saying that if I didn’t want the world to know about the creature I had been hiding all this time, I should be prepared to come up with a thousand pounds. If I agreed, I was to lower the parlor curtains in a certain way.”
“Was the note signed?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I was afraid that if I acceded to the demand, began to pay blackmail, there would be no end to it. So though I gave the signal that meant I agreed to the terms, I began making other plans.”
“To take your son out of the country.”
“Yes. I made the arrangements I described to you when you first came to see me. Polk rented a carriage and was to drive us to the coast. The reason we planned to leave at night was not because I was concerned about a chest of artifacts, but because we were transporting my son, who was heavily drugged.”
“I suspected that you were not telling me the truth at the time. And I gather that someone else was suspicious of you, too.”
“Yes. Severn, or whoever had sent me the blackmail note, must have been watching. When I went into the house, they killed Polk, pulled Mrs. Severn out of the carriage and made off with it, taking my son with them.”
“I imagine you’ve heard from the kidnappers since.”
“Yes. Twice. Two days after that, I got a note saying I apparently needed a lesson to prove that whoever was writing was not to be trifled with. I would get that lesson within the next day or so. And I did.”
“That was the murder of the woman on Pentonville Road?”
“Yes. The cuff link that was found in her hand was Alfred’s. He had been wearing it when he was kidnapped.”
“What did the next note say?”
“It addressed itself to my deepest fears. Though Mrs. Severn had insisted that the boy was not dangerous, I had never been sure she was right, and I was afraid of what he might do if he got loose. He is sixteen years old now, as big and strong as a full-grown man, but with no intelligence—nothing to keep his appetites, his destructive drives in check. What they had done, these monsters who are far more monstrous than my poor boy, was to turn him loose and—for some reason—he killed the woman. The note now demanded not one, but two thousand pounds. If I agreed to pay it, instructions would be given to me as to how it was to be paid and the boy would be returned to me. If I refused to pay or if I went to the police, the boy would be turned loose completely, and what would happen after that, the death and destruction he would wreak, would be my responsibility.”
“That was why you said what you did on Westminster Bridge.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have those notes?”
“No. In each case I was told to destroy them, and I did.”
“Of course. Well, we’ll have to see what we can do about the matter.”
“But what can you do? Even if Severn is behind the whole thing, as seems probable, how can you find him—and find him before he turns that poor creature loose on an unsuspecting city?”
“As it happens, we know where Severn is. Or where he was a few days ago.”
“You do know?”
“Yes. And that presents some problems. Because he was in an infirmary with a badly broken leg before Polk was killed and your boy kidnapped. Which means that it will be very hard to prove that he was involved. On the other hand, there may be another way to unravel the mystery.” He glanced again at the note Tucker had given him when he came in with the tea. “Are they still here, sergeant?”
“I’m sure they are, sir. They said they’d wait.”
“Good.” Wyatt rose. “I suggest that you go home, m’lord. I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I have something to report.”
“Does that mean you think you may have something—some word—fairly soon?”
“I don’t dare make any promises, especially after what happened tonight. We’ll have to see.”
“Thank you, Inspector.” Somerville rose too, shook Wyatt’s hand. “Even though it seemed impossible at the time, I’m beginning to think I might have been better off if I’d told you the truth, the whole terrible story, at the very beginning.”
“I think it might have been better if you had. But we will see if, out of this nettle danger, we can’t still salvage something.”
He opened the door and followed Somerville out. Sara and Andrew, sitting on a bench against the far wall, stood up when they saw him.
“So you did wait,” he said.
“Of course,” said Sara. “Did the sergeant tell you why we came? That Pierre’s conscious?”
“He told me. How long ago was this?”
“About three quarters of an hour ago.”
“How did you get here?”
“Fred brought us. He’s waiting outside.”
“Good. We’ll go back to the house with you. Come on, Sergeant.”
11
Pierre’s Story
In spite of the hour—it was well after three o’clock—the house on Rysdale Road was wide awake
. Lights were on downstairs as well as upstairs, and when the landau drew up under the porte-cochere, Matson opened the front door.
“Shall I wait?” asked Fred.
“It’s pretty late,” said Andrew, “but perhaps you should.”
“I was going to even if you said no.”
“Why?”
“You know I like to be in on things; and when he’s around,” he nodded toward Wyatt, “there are usually things to be in on.”
He shook the reins and drove the horses around the house and back toward the stable.
“Is he always like that?” asked Tucker.
“Usually,” said Andrew. Then, as if that explained it, “He used to be a jockey.” He led the way upstairs. “I don’t think Matson likes the way he talks to me,” he said, lowering his voice, “but there’s nothing he can do about it because Fred’s not just good with horses—he also makes my mother laugh. So that’s that.”
The door of the guest room was open. Pierre, with more color in his cheeks than he’d had before, was sitting up in bed and finishing a bowl of soup.
Mrs. Wiggins, wearing a nightcap and robe, was sitting next to him.
“Good evening, Inspector. Good evening, Sergeant,” she said. “Or should I say good morning?”
“Good morning is certainly more accurate,” said Wyatt. “How’s our young friend?”
“He’s a good deal better than he was. He was half starved along with whatever else that was wrong with him. This is his second bowl of soup.”
“Ça va, mon gar?” asked Wyatt.
“Oui, m’sieu” said Pierre somewhat shyly.
“This is the friend of whom I spoke,” said Andrew in his simple, but understandable French. “He is an inspector in our police and you can trust him completely. He will see that no harm comes to you.”
“Of that you can be sure,” said Wyatt in extremely good French. “Would it be easier for you to tell us what we want to know in French than in English?”
“Yes, m’sieu.”
“Good. Then begin at the beginning and tell us your whole story—how you came to England and how you came to the house here the other night.”
The Case of the Somerville Secret Page 9