by Janice Law
Inspector Davis sniffed in irritation. “Likely to live,” he said. “Remembers nothing useful.”
“He was certainly knocked unconscious,” I said, but I thought that a little memory loss might be George’s best chance to avoid the noose if not prison. “And his scientific abilities? Are they gone, too?”
“There’s hope that his invaluable brain is otherwise intact. They’re taking him to Cambridge to assess his scientific capabilities as soon as he can be cleared to travel.” Both Inspector Davis’s face and tone were sour.
I was not exactly well disposed toward George at that moment, but fair is fair—and Lizzie Armitage was a nice girl if maybe not totally reliable. “He wanted to get the document back. That’s what he was yelling about when he grabbed me. Could he have attacked Freddie, too? Come in on that late morning train to confront him and followed him back as far as the tower?”
“And cut his throat when he didn’t cooperate?”
I shook my head. “I doubt that. Not when he hadn’t gotten the negatives and didn’t know where they were. Besides, someone else must be involved, because that wasn’t George in my room last night, was it?”
Inspector Davis shook his head. Before he could advance a better theory, Uncle Lastings arrived, full of praise for Nan, who he felt was wasted on yours truly. She had given him her account of events before resuming her efforts to get me back to London, and he wanted to compare my version to hers. Unlike the inspector, whose focus was on Tollman, Grove, and poor George, my uncle was interested in my attacker. Initially, I attributed this to family feeling for his nephew, but there I was wrong. After I had given the best description I could, he opened a little notebook and read me bits of her statement. “She claims the intruder was wearing a mask?”
“That’s right. A surgical mask like for the operating room. And definitely male. He didn’t speak, at all. Just that scream. Two screams. When Nan stuck him with the knitting needle and then a truly dreadful cry.”
“This was when he was attempting to inject something?”
“He was trying to unwrap my bandages. And that was odd. If he had a hypodermic needle of some type, he could have stuck me anywhere and been successful, couldn’t he? For some reason, he wanted at the wound. In trying to remove the bandage, he delayed just long enough for Nan to stab him with her knitting needle. He was thrown off balance and fell against the bed. I think the syringe or whatever it was must have stuck him somehow.”
“But nothing touched you?” My uncle was very insistent on that point, and when I’d been as definite as I could be, he and the inspector examined the bed carefully and insisted that the sheets be changed immediately.
What seemed like an excess of caution made me nervous. “What do you think was his weapon?” I asked finally.
My uncle shook his head. “Time will tell,” he said.
“In the meantime—”
“In the meantime, we wait. If your account of events is accurate and my supposition is correct, your attacker will not just be known soon; he’ll be dead.”
Chapter 16
Talk about Nemesis. There are times when the schoolboy’s Greek and Latin stories come to life in alarming ways. But why wasn’t I cheered by the prospect of quick retribution? Because until the attacker was caught—or, as my uncle predicted, turned up dead—I was to remain in the hospital. To my protests, and Nan’s, both the inspector and my uncle had the same response: We were vital witnesses who could more easily be protected right where we were. Both of us were properly skeptical about that!
Besides, we were told, if I went up to London, there might be complications with the addition of what Inspector Davis called “new elements.” I supposed these were Signor Rinaldi’s cohorts or Grove’s fascist colleagues, but I doubted that they would be any worse than our hospital attacker with his mysterious weapon.
I thought the sensible thing would be to announce that compromising documents had been recovered. As indeed they could be, given that some genuine negatives and a phony scientific paper were hiding behind the flushing mechanism in the major’s historic WC. This idea was received with horror.
So instead of returning to pavement, soot, and civilization, we were stuck with the delights of the autumn seaside. Various constables and sergeants haunted the hospital, Nan was billeted at a nearby bed and breakfast, and the two of us were expected to languish in the odor of disinfectant and bedpans, waiting to see if Uncle Lastings was right that my night visitor was doomed. Day two of my stay was not too bad; I was still seriously under the weather. By day three, I was up and out of bed and thinking about the increasingly precarious finances of my studio with the many incomplete plans and drawings, and even more, about certain new images that seemed fit for canvas.
I began to complain to my uncle and to the inspector, and when I got no joy from them, I suggested to Nan that we might make our way home on our own. She plumped for an ambulance, but I strode around the room—well, strode is an exaggeration, but I stepped out in a convincing fashion—and said I could manage a taxi to the station and a seat in first class. I expected Nan to be enthusiastic, but she shook her head.
I insisted that I was on the mend, that I’d manage just fine.
“I believe you would, dear boy, but I would feel better if we knew who attacked you.”
“Uncle Lastings assures me that he will be out of action.”
“I never put too much stock in your uncle’s assurances.”
“There is that.” I sat back down on the bed. “Not Grove or any of his British fascists, I don’t think.”
Nan shook her head. She had gotten cozy with the nursing sisters and seemed privy to hospital gossip. “The sisters say he is incommunicado. His leg is in traction, too.”
“And George Armitage is under guard with a head injury.”
“He was taken up to Cambridge this morning. The nurses were talking about it in the hallway. Some thought that they were moving him too early.”
“So George is out. Tollman just wanted to get his photo and forget the whole business.”
“Very sensible of him.”
“And the Italians. They want the document. Killing me wouldn’t get it for them.”
“We’ve eliminated everyone,” Nan said.
“Well, not quite. Tollman said something. In the billiard room.” I stared into space and tried to bring up the room with its dark woodwork and the stained-glass lamp over the table. “He said that everyone at the house party had reason to want Freddie dead. I took that to include the Larkins.”
“Ah,” said Nan. “And the major was military.”
“Military intelligence. Like Uncle Lastings and Inspector Davis.”
“But he wasn’t in any of Freddie’s photos, was he?”
“Not that I saw. But who knows what Freddie knew. It might not have been about the major, either. Mrs. Larkin is very keen on the BUF and Mosley. She’s the one who really knew Freddie.”
“And the daughter, what’s her name?”
“Victoria.”
“Victoria went off suddenly to Rome, didn’t she?”
“That’s right. But there’s something else. The night I fell. The major got there first. Alone. He had a knife in his hand, and I remember that I said something to him, that I said . . .” I was afraid the words were gone. The rattle of a cart in the corridor, the constable of the hour greeting one of the nurses, a gust of wind rattling the window, then I remembered. “I asked him to please not to kill me.”
Nan took in a breath. “He would have thought of Freddie. He would have guessed you were suspicious.”
“But I had no proof, Nan.”
“He wasn’t to know that. And if he had some strange military poison, he might have hoped to get away risk free. We need to talk to your uncle and Inspector Davis.”
“I suspect it won’t be news to them. They must know
a great deal more about Major Larkin than we do.”
“But they will not want to know,” Nan said. “As officers and gentlemen, they will delay and delay if there is the slightest chance he is innocent.”
“And he might be.”
“We will call the inspector,” Nan said, “and tell him that you tipped your hand. Understandably.”
A walk down the hall, longer than I’d remembered, where I waited while Nan negotiated with the sister for the use of the phone. She was gone quite a long time, and when she returned, she looked discouraged. “Not available. But I got an Inspector Carstairs.”
“He’s the local man in charge of the original investigation.”
“He’s coming to see you,” Nan said. “I sense he’s been rather cut out of the investigation.”
“Another reason to think the major might be implicated, though he has supposedly been assisting the Special Branch.”
Carstairs arrived as I was getting my dressing changed. He looked as doleful as a bloodhound and, as usual, reeked of tobacco. A few minutes’ conversation proved that Nan was correct: He’d been told nothing and he was resentful. I soon saw that my nan planned to take advantage of this. She told him that her dear boy needed to get to London, and she wondered if he could arrange a car. She did not need to mention that that was the price of our information.
Carstairs considered a moment then nodded. Nan smiled, and I began recounting the events, omitting only references to the famous document, original or phony.
“Two of the people involved are in already custody,” he observed. “One, of course, has been removed from my jurisdiction.”
“He is supposedly invaluable elsewhere,” I said.
“But the major. What reason could he have?”
“Larkin Manor. He’s been living beyond his means to hold on to it, and he is desperate for the National Trust to take over the estate. Either Freddie knew something to block that or he was the reason the major was always short of cash.”
“Possible,” said Carstairs. “And you appeared to have taken over Freddie’s business.”
“That’s right. That was the impression I was told to give. But since Major Larkin had set up the house party, I assumed that he had been filled in about my exact role.”
“Not if he was a suspect from the start,” Carstairs said sagely. “We have wheels within wheels here.”
I agreed with that.
“You were lucky. He might have cut your throat.”
“Apparently, he—or whoever attacked me—had a better weapon. Something that would not be detected. Something secret, possibly military.”
“Very likely military.” Carstairs spoke with unusual animation. “Hence the complete shutdown of information. We’ve had a shocking lack of cooperation.”
“We’ve been told that if the attacker did injure himself, his death is certain. But the time frame is vague.”
“As far as I know, no one has questioned the major except me—and that was strictly routine. I think it’s time we had a word. There’ll be an outcry, of course, given his contacts with the security services.”
“But if there’s been a lack of cooperation . . .” Nan suggested.
“Right. What else can they expect?” He went to speak to the constable on duty and returned to say, “Ten minutes. Pack up your things, and I’ll take you to the station. With a stop first at Larkin Manor.”
Was I never going to see the end of country house visits? Apparently not. Carstairs had a plan. While he’d decided (correctly, I think) that I could not be considered a reliable witness, he thought Nan might recognize my attacker. Hence the stop at the manor where he planned to bring the major and my nan together. It was one of those plans that is better than nothing—but not much.
I was loaded into the backseat of Carstairs’s car. Enveloped in stale tobacco smoke and bolstered by a couple of purloined hospital pillows and half a dozen towels, I lay holding my single crutch. Nan sat up front with Carstairs, turning around every few minutes to see how I was doing. Answer: not too well on the winding country roads. In fact, I was beginning to miss the curved metal pan that had sat beside my bed before we rolled up the long drive to the manor and parked out front.
I said that I needed some air, and though Nan looked concerned and Carstairs, irritated, they helped me out onto the gravel. I stuck my crutch under my arm and felt better for being upright. “You don’t come in,” said Carstairs. “Too obvious.”
“Right.” I waited until they went up to the front door then hobbled around the side of the house. I don’t know why I had an impulse to look at the tower and the dig, especially when the horsey scent from the stable began to tickle my lungs, but I did. I hobbled down the path and skirted the dig—the dig that I will always feel mildly grateful for. I was about to return to the house before reaching rougher ground when I saw Jenkins standing in the shrubbery, a bottle in his hand.
I raised my hand but instead of calling hello, he placed a finger against his lips and signaled for me to approach. A good idea, Francis? I wasn’t so sure, but the Agreeable One beckoned again and I limped across the lawn.
“Sorry,” he said when I reached the shelter of the rhododendrons. “I don’t want to be spotted from the house. Why are you here?”
“Inspector Carstairs brought me. We’re on our way to London. He’s looking for the major.”
Jenkins was alarmed. “He mustn’t find him. If he does, he’ll want to take him into custody, to the hospital.”
So it was true. My rascally uncle, who so often bends the truth to his own advantage, had been correct. “He tried to kill me,” I said.
Jenkins nodded unhappily. “I knew nothing about that until it was too late. He was obsessed with the manor. He thought Inspector Davis and that Lastings chap were lying to him. He thought that he was under suspicion, that you knew about whatever Freddie had on him.”
“We had nothing. At least nothing I knew of. He tried to stick me with something and hurt himself, instead.”
“Yes. I drove him to Folkestone. He had a mad idea that he might recover at the seaside. Might as well have gone to Canterbury or Lourdes. As soon as he fell sick, he wanted to come back. He wants to die here.”
“He’s here?”
“He’s hidden. He can’t last. You needn’t be afraid of him. But please don’t tell the police or the madame.”
Jenkins sounded sincere, but I’ve become suspicious. “I want to see him. I want to see for myself.”
Jenkins shrugged uncomfortably. When he put his hand to his belt, I saw that he was armed with what looked like my uncle’s Webley.
“Listen, if he is dying, I won’t say anything. Not till he’s gone. But if you shoot me, it’s up instantly, isn’t it?”
He hesitated only a moment, then took my arm. When we reached the dig wheelbarrow, he gestured toward it. I got awkwardly onto the barrow, which fortunately had a completely flat bed. Jenkins gave me the water bottle to hold, then seized the handles. We made our bumpy way around the stables toward the chapel. Of course, the last resting place of Larkin warriors. Jenkins helped me out at the side door. Inside, the low autumn light filtered through the plain yellowish modern glass and threw red, blue, and green patterns from the surviving stained windows. The place smelled of dusty stone and incense, and the only sounds were the calls of wood pigeons in the trees outside.
Jenkins gestured toward a heavy oak door off the main sanctuary. He tapped once on it, then unlocked it. The old chapel smell was swamped by the rotten smell of sickness, essence of hospital, such as I now recognized, minus the disinfectant overlay. The major lay on the floor on a pile of blankets, his head propped up on pillows. His face had gone all to bone, and the skin over the bones was thin and gray. Jenkins spoke to him without receiving an answer, and when he knelt down to check the major’s pulse, he shook his head.
�
�I’m guessing massive organ failure,” he said quietly. “He cannot last more than a few hours.”
I heard the rattle and whistle of the major’s breathing and thought even a few hours might be optimistic. “What was it? What sort of poison?”
“He said it was ricin, castor bean, but ultrarefined into an incredibly toxic pellet. Something the military had developed.”
As if machine guns and poison gas hadn’t proved deadly enough. The military mind has a great deal to answer for.
“He dies here,” Jenkins said. “You must promise.” And he touched the weapon stuck in his belt again.
It didn’t take much imagination to see that there would be problems, complaints, and scandal if the major eluded the law. Not that I thought those legalities mattered, not when he was clearly dying from within. “All right. What about you? At the very least, you will be considered an accessory after the fact.”
“Can I rely on you?” he asked. “When Major Larkin dies, I’ll make a run for it. If you don’t notify the police until tomorrow—tomorrow morning will surely be time enough—I’ll be gone. That way the major will be found before his remains are too distressing.”
When I nodded, he shook my hand. “Thank you, Francis. He saved my life when he got me out of the trenches. A lot of my mates were not so lucky.”
The endless war. I could contribute nothing on that topic, and I didn’t try. “Leave the door unlocked when you go,” I said. “And wheel me as far as the stable. I’ll manage from there.”
Or so I thought. In the event, I barely made it back to Inspector Carstairs’s car, and when I did, I was wheezing like a steam locomotive. Of course, Nan noticed that and also the earth on my trousers.
“I slipped looking at the dig. I didn’t notice there was dew on the grass.”
Nan clearly was dubious about that, but Carstairs was all in a sweat and didn’t notice much of anything. The major had done a bunk. Off who knew where. And Jenkins, the footman, was missing as well. The car was in the garage. “Or,” Carstairs said, simmering and quite near the boil, “the car had been in the garage. But now Thorne, I think he’s the chauffeur, has been sent off on errands with it. Without as much as checking the mileage.”