'And what about the war?' said Is. The truth was unfurling in her head like a roll of carpet. 'I bet you didn't count on that. And Mrs Gleed. Surely you didn't intend her to come to harm, did you? It was a consequence you just didn't foresee.'
Carver looked down. Oh so briefly, but the action was a giveaway nonetheless. It spoke of a conscience pricked - remorse felt, however fleetingly.
The banister gave a lurch.
Moore squawked.
Carver raised his head again and looked Is squarely in the eye.
'I only caught a glimpse of you at the ball,' he said, 'otherwise I'd have recognised you straight away when you came back today. I didn't even make the connection when you attended to Mrs Gleed, which was remiss of me. I thought you were an associate of his.' He nodded at Moore, who flinched in the mistaken belief that he was about to be head-butted. 'Had I been thinking more clearly at the time, I would have put two and two together. It came to me shortly afterwards. The nurse. Damien's helper. But of course I wasn't going to say anything even then, and thereby incriminate myself. I'd pay no attention to you, and then you'd leave and no one would be any the wiser.'
'Except it didn't work out that way. You realise, don't you, that Damien would - will - identify you as his accomplice.'
'Will he I wonder. And even if he does, I'll have protection. You really don't know as much about this as you think you do, young lady.'
'Maybe not. Still, we're discussing it rationally, it's out in the open - so perhaps, please, you can pull Mr Moore back. He doesn't need to be hanging over the edge like that now. He's not a threat to you any more.'
'I'm not accustomed to taking orders from a non-Family member.'
'Tell him, 'Strav,' Is said, turning. 'I don't like the sounds that banister's making. Tell him to --'
The sound the banister made next was like nothing Is had heard before. There was a long raspy shriek, punctuated by a series of deep pizzicato plunks as though some giant harpist was running her fingers along the uprights. Then came a warping, grinding sprunnng noise, and Is spun round in time to see the upper end of the banister detach itself from the staircase and twist outwards as fluidly as though it were cotton ribbon. It went flat, and Moore and Carver went flat with it, sprawling one on top of the other. The banister kept them there, suspended, for an instant of infinity. Then, with a squeal, it gave way.
Is threw herself forwards headlong, hand outstretched. She grabbed blindly, and more by instinct than aim seized hold of a forearm.
She hoped, she prayed, it was Moore's and not Carver's.
The banister peeled away, unspooling downward until its upper end hit the atrium floor with a clang. In the echoes of the impact Is heard a cry of pain followed by gurgling distress and then a sharp sigh. Her eyes were closed. She was lying prone on the stairs, with one arm hanging over the edge and supporting the weight of a grown man. Something had torn in her shoulder - a muscle wrench rather than a dislocation, she thought, but still it hurt like hell. She could not move. Dared not. She was gripping whoever's wrist as hard as she could. She would not let go, refused to. She was aware of Extravagance beside her. 'Come on,' Extravagance was saying. Not to Is. 'Help us help you up. Come on. Put your foot there. Yes, that's it.'
She would not let go, even after the man was safely on the stairs next to her. It took Extravagance pulling back hard on her fingers to get her to unclamp them from his wrist.
Then, at last opening her eyes, she looked and saw Romeo Moore, prone, panting frantically.
Alive.
Which meant...
She rolled her head round and looked over the edge.
It was a sight which Extravagance was trying desperately to avert her eyes from and which Moore was too traumatised to think about viewing just yet.
But Is looked. Stared. Had to see.
Triumph's upraised arm. Hand gloved to the wrist with blood. And below the hand, like some ghastly bracelet, a body. Carver. Limbs dangling. Head thrown back. Impaled through the abdomen. Twitching his last.
72
A gathering of the Clan.
The place: the fourth largest drawing room at Dashlands House, decorated with bamboo screens, tropical ferns in urns, an elephant's foot umbrella stand, and a plethora of animal pelts, from tiger throw rug to antelope wall-hanging to leopardskin upholstery - a great white hunter's paradise.
Present, seated left to right: Provender Gleed, Isis Necker, Prosper Gleed, Fortune Gleed, Gratitude Gleed, Extravagance Gleed, and Great.
Supervising the proceedings: Anagrammatic Detective Romeo Moore...
...who was acutely aware how this scene resembled the final chapter of one of those country-house murder mystery novels he used to devour as a child, the revelatory moment when the police inspector or the private investigator unmasked the villain, who was usually the person you least suspected until after you had read widely enough in the genre, whereupon he/she became the person you suspected from the start. Moore could not help thinking he ought to say something like, 'I expect you're wondering why I've called you all together.' The temptation was there, but resistible. He also had to fight the desire to crack a joke about the butler having really done it.
No, this was a sombre moment, not the time for clowning around. Nor was it the time for revelling in success. Moore's achievements as a detective, pleased with them as he was, meant little when he was confronted by a Family in a state of shock. The faces arrayed before him, Great's excepted, were bewildered and drawn and haggard. The Gleeds had a lot to come to terms with, and Moore's natural courtesy inclined him to downplay his role here as bringer of truth and exposer of foul play.
'I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you what I have to tell you,' he began. It helped, from the point of view of sounding tactful, that his voice was reduced to a husky croak. His throat hurt if he spoke above a certain volume. Carver's fist had bruised his larynx and Is said it would probably be sore for the next few days but the only remedies were time and not talking too much.
'I didn't even know what I was doing,' he added modestly. 'It all just seemed to fall into place of its own accord. I suppose it's because I'm in the habit of looking for patterns. Patterns within words, patterns in everything. If not for that, I wouldn't have --'
'Why did Carver try to kill you?' said Prosper Gleed, curtly.
Moore was thrown by the interruption. He blinked, regrouped and restarted. 'Allegedly he wasn't trying to kill me. Allegedly he caught me stealing something and was tackling me as he would have any thief. But in fact I believe he would have killed me if he had had the opportunity to get away with it. Then he'd have planted some piece of incriminating evidence in my pocket and come to you with the whole terrible story. And my death would have been made to look like an accident, I'm sure, or less his fault, more mine. Your manservant was keen to cover his tracks, and I, as far as he was concerned, was in every way expendable.'
'But it's hard to conceive,' said Gratitude. 'Carver, willing to take a man's life.'
'An ex-soldier? And by all accounts a fearsome warrior in his day? Not so hard to conceive, Miss Gleed.'
'You weren't there, Grat,' said Extravagance. 'He was berserk. I think he really meant to do it.'
'But why?' said Prosper. 'What for?'
'To protect the Family,' said Moore.
'Protect us? From...?'
'Er... Me. Or rather, what I had found out, a piece of information that was highly damaging to him.'
'Come on, man, talk straight. What information?'
'I'm getting to that.'
'Well, can't you hurry it up a bit?'
'Dad,' said Provender. 'Stop hassling him. Let him explain in his own time.'
'But he's --'
'Dad.'
Prosper fell silent, cowed by his son's forthrightness.
'Go on, Romeo,' said Provender.
'Right. So. Um. What it comes down to is the fact that the whole kidnap plot was orchestrated not by some outside agency but from right here,
at Dashlands.'
Now it was Fortune's turn to expostulate indignantly, although he did so in a more muted manner than his brother. 'That's not right. Can't be right. Why would anyone...?' Rather than complete the rhetorical question, he submerged it in a draught of gin and tonic.
'We can, I hope, get to the bottom of "why?" shortly,' Moore said, with a surreptitious glance towards Great. 'I myself had an inkling from the start that it might be an inside job. What I didn't realise was that the culprit was the very person who was employing me to investigate the crime.'
'Yes, why is that?' said Provender. 'Why would Carver have hired you unless he thought you... Oh.'
Moore nodded, with chagrin but also with a hint of vengeful satisfaction. 'He told me himself shortly before he attacked me. He honestly didn't think I or my partner had a hope of cracking the case. He took us on ... well, principally so that he could appear to be doing something useful, but also because of all the trees he could have barked up, ours was the wrongest one. If you see what I mean. It was almost a joke to him, I feel. "Who's the least likely person I can find to send to look for Provender?"'
'We only have your word on any of this,' said Fortune. 'You could be spinning us some cock-and-bull story in order to...'
'In order to what? Get myself off the hook for supposedly stealing some trinket from you? Hardly likely. Besides, I have a Family witness here who'll attest to the fact that Carver was trying to silence me, don't I, Extravagance? He all but confessed his connection to the kidnapper, Damien Scrase, in the moments before he... we...'
Moore experienced again the terror of being bent over the banister, Carver's furious features filling his vision, the sense of the drop beneath him, the hard tiles below, his utter helplessness. His fingers, reflexively, went to his throat and explored the tender flesh there. It was weird to be alive after having been so close to death. It was at once exhilarating and deflating, an emotional alp from which the only route was down.
He became aware that he had faded out and Extravagance was speaking, filling the gap he had left. She told everyone that not only had Carver clearly been intent on murder but he had recognised Is, who also had some connection with this whole messy business.
'Don't you?' she concluded, with a frosty look at the person with whom, half an hour earlier, she had been going through her wardrobe, selecting skirts to try on, all girls together.
Before Is had a chance to reply, Provender stepped in. 'She was an unwilling accomplice, forced to take part against her will. She helped me escape, too, and in case you've forgotten, she saved our mother's life.'
Is shifted in her seat, exquisitely uncomfortable. She opened her mouth to say something before deciding that saying nothing was the better option.
'I can vouch for her as well,' said Moore. 'I saw her tackle Scrase at the Shortborn, when he was threatening Provender. She's definitely on the side of the angels.'
Is started gently massaging her wrenched shoulder, head down, avoiding all stares.
'But if we're looking to lay blame,' Moore continued, 'there is someone in this room deserving of our attention. Carver is guilty of a lot but there's someone who I'd say is even guiltier.'
He let the words hang in the air, allowing the Gleeds to draw the correct inference, which, gradually, they did. Heads turned, homing in on the one person present whose head could not turn.
Great's stare remained forward-fixed as ever, his eyes stony. His hand was not tapping. His whole body was statue-still. Then, little by little, his eyes began to move, sweeping across his assembled relatives, defiant, challenging. You could read anything into the way those glittering blue orbs looked, from an admission of culpability to astonished, out-and-out refutation.
'No,' said Fortune.
'Great?' said Gratitude.
'Too far,' said Prosper. 'You've gone too far now, Mr Detective.'
Even Provender looked dubious.
'I understand your scepticism,' said Moore, 'and no doubt I'll only add to it when I tell you that it was his full name, his proper name, which set the seal on it for me, bearing out my suspicion that Carver was just the brawn of the outfit and someone else was the brains.'
'What is Great's proper name?' asked Extravagance.
'Oh really, 'Strav!' said her older sister. 'You don't know?'
'I forget. No one ever calls him by it.'
'Arthur does.'
'Does he?
'You are so unobservant sometimes. Coriander.'
'Oh yes. So it is.'
'Coriander,' said Moore. 'And CORIANDER GLEED happens to be an anagram of CODE RINGLEADER.'
Fortune snorted a laugh.
'It is.'
'I don't care if it is, Moore, I simply think you're taking the mickey. Anagram indeed!'
'It's what he does, uncle,' said Provender, 'and I hate to say it but it works. That was Carver's mistake. He thought it was ridiculous too.'
'So we're expected to believe, on the strength of an anagram, that a paralysed old man was capable of --'
'Forgive me,' Moore interjected, 'but Great is not paralysed.'
'Some bloody detective! Of course he is. Look at him. He's been in that chair for, Christ, over a decade. He's not faking it. What, suddenly he's going to get up and walk and tell us it was all a big sham?'
'No, no, not at all.'
'And I'll bet he speaks, too. Eh? He's just been pretending he can't all this time.'
'As it happens, he can speak. Not in the conventional sense, but --'
'Pure bollocks!' Fortune exclaimed. 'I can believe, I suppose, that Carver's a bad guy. Never much liked him, to be honest. But now you're telling us that the oldest member of the Family, for some reason that has yet to be established, went to the trouble of having the heir-apparent abducted and caused all this chaos. Why, for God's sake? Family doesn't harm its own. That's an unwritten law.'
'His motives I hope to find out. His methods? When I said he can speak, what I meant was he can communicate.'
'Oh, and how?'
'What isn't he doing right now?'
'Anything. He isn't doing anything. Because he's paralysed.' Fortune said this condescendingly, as if conversing with a simpleton.
Provender said, 'Tapping. He's not tapping.'
'Correct,' said Moore. 'But when he does...'
'Code.'
'Exactly.'
There was a pause, a collective intake of breath, a communal click of understanding.
'It's not possible,' said Gratitude. 'We'd have noticed. Surely we would have.'
'But we didn't,' said her brother. 'It happened slowly. He lost movement, he lost his speech, the tapping started... We just didn't think about it. We thought it was a symptom.'
'Right under our noses,' said their uncle, wonderingly.
'And Carver,' said Prosper, 'he knew.'
'They served together in the army,' said Moore. 'Both would have a working knowledge of Morse code.'
'Well, of course,' said Fortune. 'Carver always seemed to know exactly what Great wanted. We thought it was just because he was a good servant and had spent so much time in Great's company. What's that word when two different species of animal co-operate?'
'Symbiosis.'
'That's the one. That was their relationship. Kind of psychic, almost.'
'Only it wasn't,' said Provender. 'Carver knew what Great wanted all the time because Great was telling him.'
'Are we idiots not to have seen it?' said Extravagance.
No one else answered, so Moore felt honour-bound to. 'Not necessarily. Why would it occur to you that that's what was going on?'
'You spotted it.'
'Like I said, patterns. And the anagrams. It's how my brain is wired.'
'But you met them and saw it straight away. We live with them.'
'Sometimes, when a thing's right in front of you, you adjust to it. You take it into account and don't think anything of it. It's just there. Also, an elderly, disabled relative tends to fade into the backgr
ound, especially when, as with this Family, everyone else has such a strong personality. The elderly relative becomes, with all due respect, part of the furniture.'
He anticipated protests, but there were only mute nods of assent.
Throughout the foregoing, Great's eyes flicked from speaker to speaker but his hand stayed resolutely still, denying by its very motionlessness the abilities Moore was asserting it had. Then, abruptly, it started shaking, twisting from the wrist to bring the finger with the signet ring into contact with the wheelchair armrest.
The assembled Family listened in silence, paying attention to a sound they had hitherto regarded as just so much meaningless reflex-movement drumming. Not one of them had any idea what Great was saying but they knew for the first time that he was saying something, and this, in itself, lent the tapping a strange articulacy. Great, dumb for a decade, was talking again. Speech - incomprehensible but speech nonetheless - was issuing forth from him.
'Can you understand him?' Prosper asked Moore.
'I know Morse. Sort of. I know how each letter is represented. But he's going to fast for me to follow.'
'Great,' Prosper said, 'you'll have to slow down. Mr Moore will be able to translate then.'
The rate of the tapping decreased, but Moore, try though he might, still could not make head or tail of it. The louds and softs, dashes and dots, all seemed to merge into one another.
'Slower still,' said Prosper.
The tapping became painstakingly protracted, Great leaving long gaps between letters and making the distinction between the dashes and dots as marked as possible. Moore was just about able to keep up now, although not without effort. He had memorised the Morse alphabet a long time ago, purely as an intellectual exercise, but he had never actually had to use it before. Adding to his difficulties was the fact that he was having to recall it under pressure. He made, therefore, several mistakes to start with, although gradually his ear attuned and his fluency improved.
'FAMILY GETTING WEAP,' he interpreted. 'WEAP? What's that?'
Great tapped out the last word again.
'Oh, WEAK. NEEDED SHAKING UP. BOY NEEDED... SHOCK? Is that it? SHOCK?'
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