The Prisoner in the Castle

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  David glanced at the other men. Their faces were stone, except for Frain’s. The Major General looked intrigued.

  “Yes,” answered Martens reluctantly.

  “Well, what sort of special training goes on there?”

  “Mr. Greene,” Martens countered, “I will not discuss specifics with a…a…private secretary.”

  “With all due respect, sir,” David persisted. “The agents there are unreachable. Which is unfortunate, because one of them is Miss Margaret Hope—who, Colonel Martens, used to work for the P.M. Miss Hope is rather desperately needed right now by Scotland Yard to testify in the Blackout Beast trial. So why can’t anyone communicate with her?”

  “Ah, Miss Hope!” boomed the P.M. “What’s she doing there?” He turned to Leycock and narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t she one of yours in SOE?”

  “She was in Paris and returned safely to London in June.” Leycock shrugged. “I’m not sure why she’d need any additional training, though.” He turned to Martens with a raised eyebrow.

  Martens glared.

  “Colonel Martens.” Frain leaned forward. “Perhaps you could answer Mr. Greene’s question in vague terms?”

  When the P.M. nodded, Martens spoke, not bothering to conceal his reluctance. “The facility on Scarra is a special training ground for advanced operational needs,” he said, as though reciting from a textbook. “Individuals are sent there to prepare for different situations. We use our setup on the Isle of Scarra to give highly sensitive training to those who are going on important missions. That’s all I can say.”

  “And why can’t we get through to the agents there?” David asked him. “Why is no communication allowed?”

  “For security reasons,” Martens replied stiffly. “But I wouldn’t say no to more tea, if you’d tell the girl now. Who else would like tea?”

  “One more thing,” Frain interposed, holding up a hand. “Where exactly is this Scarra?”

  “It’s an island off the western coast of Scotland,” Martens admitted.

  “MI-Five has picked up a few rogue transmissions from the west coast of Scotland to a German U-boat,” Frain said. Churchill nodded. “We’re concerned they may be coming from one of the camps.”

  “If there’s a German in SOE, have at him,” Martens spat.

  “SOE trainees at the paramilitary training camps in Scotland don’t receive any information a German spy would want,” Leycock pointed out. “We do it on purpose. They’d be useless. The agents-in-training obtain specialized information only at Beaulieu.”

  “But this camp on the Isle of Scarra—if it’s as advanced as you say,” Frain went on, “would an enemy agent be able to glean anything important there? Who are these agents? And what are they working on?”

  Martens replied, “Of course we keep everything top-secret.”

  But David saw the panic flare in Martens’s eyes. He looked to Frain, who gave an almost imperceptible nod in return. And then he knew—Maggie was in real trouble.

  Chapter Fifteen

  All stations, all stations, the calm, cool voice on the wireless in the great room managed over the static. The Air Ministry’s Meteorological Office has issued a violent storm warning for Scotland from the Outer and Inner Hebrides south to Islay. Winds of more than a hundred knots and storm surges of up to fifty feet are expected by four p.m. We expect widespread damage. With only candlelight and the fireplace to light it, the two-story chamber seemed intensely forbidding. Shadows flickered over the walls, lightning occasionally flashing in the glass eye of a mounted stag.

  Maggie and Quentin entered, and through the gloom saw Anna, Teddy, Leo, and Ramsey, huddled in the nook by the fireplace. Outside, the winds moaned. The madness of living in darkness, Maggie thought and repressed a shiver.

  “Where’s Torvald?” Quentin asked.

  “Torvald is dead,” Leo said.

  Quentin clutched his fox tighter. “What?” Maggie’s jaw dropped. No. No, it can’t be…

  “While you were off exploring,” Leo explained.

  Maggie’s heart was thundering. Still, she walked closer. “How?”

  “Garroted with a wire,” Leo answered. Anna began to sob; he ignored her. “One of the favorite SOE murder techniques. On the toilet, of all places. Poor little bugger—what a way to go.”

  “Was everyone here—when Torvald went up to use the loo?” Maggie asked.

  “Well, you weren’t,” Anna snapped. “Mr. Asquith wasn’t. Dr. Khan was in his room. Teddy left to ask Mrs. McNaughton to make tea…”

  “We all left at various points,” Teddy explained. “Including Mr. Novak.” Maggie saw he was huddled in his usual chair in the corner.

  Seven dead. In five days. This is true insanity. All Maggie longed to do was curl up in the fetal position, squeeze her eyes shut, and pray she’d stay that way until she woke from this terrible nightmare.

  “What’s all this?” Sayid asked, entering the room and sensing the group’s anxiety.

  “Torvald is dead,” Maggie stated. Her voice was flat.

  “No!”

  “And what were you up to all afternoon?” asked Leo.

  Sayid held up a book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “I was reading.”

  “He’s not even a Christian,” Anna muttered.

  “What does that mean?” Sayid asked.

  “You and your people worship cows,” she continued, not bothering to hide her disdain. “And God knows what else.”

  Sayid studied the distraught girl a moment before saying, “The people who worship cows—or, rather, think cows are sacred—are Hindu. I’m a Sufi Muslim. There is a difference.”

  “Then you know all about Jihad,” Leo said. “The so-called Holy War.”

  “Jihad,” Sayid explained, setting down the book, “means struggle or striving—for self-control and betterment. It doesn’t literally mean war. Or any kind of violence, for that matter.”

  “To spread Islam, you need to fight a war,” Leo argued, walking closer. “Against the infidel. Which we all are. That’s your motive right there.”

  “Mr. Kingsley!” Sayid’s voice held an edge of warning. “Please consider what you’re saying.”

  “You were gone all afternoon.” Anna’s voice was shrill with threat. “Out of all of us, you had the most time to kill Mr. Hagan.”

  “I’m a doctor who has taken the Hippocratic oath, a loyal British citizen, and one raised as a Sufi Muslim,” Sayid countered evenly. “Which might not mean much to you, but I was brought up in a both mystic and ascetic tradition, focused on purifying the inner self. I don’t believe in violence. As you may recall, I take photographs of deer rather than shoot them.”

  “You’re from India. A mussie. A hajji.” Leo pursed his lips as though he’d tasted something foul. “A Mohammedan.”

  “I’m from London, and moreover, I’m an honorable man. A gentleman.” Anger crept at last into Sayid’s voice. “A Briton who was just as willing as you to join up and risk my life in SOE against the Nazis.”

  But you were unaccounted for during the time the murder took place, Maggie thought. I hate to doubt you, Sayid, and yet…The gong for dinner stopped any more conversation.

  “We’re not dressed,” Quentin stated. Maggie realized she was still covered in dust from their search of the library.

  “Well, it hardly matters at this point,” said Anna. “Surely you must realize most Britons think what they’re wearing during the day is just fine for tea?”

  “Philistine!” cried Leo in mock horror.

  “It’s dinner—not supper or tea,” muttered Quentin into Monsieur Reynard’s ear.

  “We might be from different religions and traditions. And we may come from different social backgrounds. But we’re Britons,” Teddy snapped. He stood. “Ladies and gentlemen—please conduct yourselves
accordingly.”

  Maggie’s mouth twitched at his stiff upper lip. It was completely inappropriate to giggle, and yet finding grim humor somehow bolstered her courage. Seven dead and we’re squabbling over the rules of etiquette. But Torvald would have been the first to laugh, she thought, remembering the little man’s dark sense of humor.

  “I’ll need to examine the body first.” Sayid turned to leave.

  Maggie wasn’t about to let him go alone. “Wait, I’m coming with you.”

  * * *

  —

  Maggie took a glass-covered oil lamp and they made their way down the seemingly endless dark corridor to the ballroom. She repressed a gasp as they entered. The vaulted high ceiling boasted an astonishing filigree of animal skulls and antlers, thousands of them. The sprung parquet floor, a geometric mosaic of rare woods, had warped from decades of leaks. Rows of water-stained scarlet silk chairs edged the room. In one corner sat the dusty shell of a grand piano. The chamber was lit from stained-glass windows set high in the walls. No one outside could possibly see in, Maggie realized.

  She couldn’t look away from the two bodies wrapped in sheets and laid in the center of the room. As if he read her thoughts, Sayid offered his hand as they approached. For an instant, she hesitated, then took it. She gazed at his face; in the lamp’s glow, he seemed to have aged terribly in the last few days. There was a deep gash of a worry line between his eyebrows, and his lips were pressed together.

  He pulled back the sheets and they looked down at Torvald. His neck was ripped and bloody. Maggie swallowed to keep from vomiting. Another dead. It didn’t seem possible.

  Sayid bent to examine Torvald. “Death by garrote. Just as we were taught at Arisaig House.”

  “That’s the thing,” Maggie murmured. “All of us know how to kill. We all have the potential to be murderers.”

  “Well, I know you’re innocent.” Sayid pulled the sheets back over the corpses. “I know you—there’s no way you could kill anyone, Maggie. At least without a damn good reason.”

  She tried to smile, but inside she felt cold. Could she say the same about him? What did she know about him, really? They’d met only a few months ago. And he’d been charming, but always somewhat distant. Maggie wanted to say something reassuring back to him, but her voice felt paralyzed. She remembered how angry he’d been with Leo, how his eyes had glinted. Could he be the killer? Or am I just being paranoid?

  “I’m sorry they said those horrible things to you,” she offered instead. “They shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve heard any of that rot—and surely not the last.”

  As he spoke, Maggie walked over the warped parquet floor to below the orchestra gallery and peered up. Quentin was right, she realized. There was a black velvet curtain, pulled to one side, which could only have been used to prevent the orchestra from seeing what was happening on the dance floor below. She decided to investigate further and found the dumbwaiters, designed to ensure the butler and servants could provide food and drinks while unable to observe what was happening inside the vast ballroom. She turned back to the room. If these walls could talk…Then she saw the two shrouded forms again, and felt as if the world were closing in.

  Sayid noticed her stagger and went to her instantly, his arms circling her waist and pulling her close. She listened to the steady, strong thump of his heart as he held her against his chest, and leaned in, enjoying the physical contact, a rare moment of not thinking. Maggie closed her eyes and pretended they were somewhere else. The Boston Common. A jazz club in London. A garden in Paris after the war. Her bedroom. She could almost imagine the horror away. Yet while it worked for a brief, fragile moment, reality would not be put off.

  “The rest will be waiting for us for dinner,” she said finally, pulling away.

  Sayid exhaled. “I know. We must go back.” He reached for her hand. “Whatever happens, I’m not leaving your side, until the boat gets here.”

  “Promise?”

  He held her hand to his heart. “I promise. We will both live through this, I swear to you.”

  * * *

  —

  It was dim in the dining room, lit only by flickering candles and hurricane lamps, when Maggie and Sayid joined the others. The seven inmates sat, a small group at the long table, their number diminished. Seven dead and now only seven prisoners alive, Maggie thought. The number of the dead now equal the number of the living.

  Most had made no attempt to dress for dinner, and their day clothes looked shockingly out of place. The men looked as if they needed to shave, and Anna’s hair was uncombed. McNaughton arrived with a platter of sandwiches, oat-studded bread stuffed with cold salmon.

  “No soup course?” asked Quentin, looking shocked. “No hot entrée?”

  “Sandwiches tonight, sir,” McNaughton replied gruffly, taking in the newly empty chairs.

  As Maggie and Sayid took their seats, no one reacted; they merely continued to stare at the food with dull eyes. It was as if the shock of all the deaths had numbed their senses, slowed their reactions. There was no panic, no outburst of fear or anger, just a distancing, a numbing of emotion. Seven were dead: acceptance of horror and death was now the norm. Sayid grasped Maggie’s hand under the table. His fingers felt warm and strong. She squeezed back.

  Outside was absolute darkness; rain continued to hiss against the glass. “No blackout curtains tonight?” Teddy said. Ramsey glanced to the windows, then trained his eyes back on his plate.

  “I doubt the Luftwaffe’s flying overhead in this storm,” replied Leo. “And even if they are, I refuse to believe they can see our candles.”

  “We should put up the blackout shades anyway,” said Anna. “It’s the rule, after all.” But she made no move to do anything. There are no rules anymore, Maggie thought.

  “At least there’s wine!” Quentin indicated the bottles on the sideboard. He stood, filling his glass to the very top and taking a noisy gulp. “This is really quite good.” He drained his glass, then refilled it. He turned back to McNaughton. “Where’s Murdo?” He picked up the bottle to bring it to the table.

  “Aren’t you going to decant it, old thing?” asked Leo.

  “We could be dead at any moment—I’m not going to waste time fussing over perfectly good wine,” Quentin retorted.

  “He’s helping his mother,” McNaughton told Quentin, who nodded.

  Leo took out his cigarette case, and Teddy raised his eyebrows. “Smoking at dinner?”

  Leo stuck a roll-up in his mouth and lit it with a silver monogrammed lighter. “We’re not dressed, there’s no soup, no entrée. I don’t see why not. All bets are off, it seems. The animals are running the zoo.” He exhaled, blowing smoke in Teddy’s direction. The older man coughed, but said nothing.

  “Then I’d like a cigarette, too, please,” said Anna. Ramsey looked up, as if he were disappointed in her.

  “Well, well, well…” Leo regarded her appraisingly. “Good for you, Miss O’Malley.” He handed one over, then lit it for her. She held it in a trembling hand for a moment before inhaling. The tip glowed red in the gloom.

  McNaughton hadn’t forgotten Quentin’s question about his son. “Why do you need to see Murdo?”

  “It’s not your place to ask, McNaughton,” Quentin replied, reaching for his wine.

  “Mr. Asquith—” Maggie began. Lightning illuminated even the darkest corners of the room, followed by a roar of thunder. Everyone at the table jumped, then laughed nervously.

  Quentin contemplated the wine bottle. “We know he can’t be killing any of us now, as we’re all in here.”

  “Mr. Asquith!”

  “What, Miss Hope? You were there. You saw what we found.”

  “What did you find?” Teddy asked, taking a bite of his sandwich.

  “Nothing,” Maggie said, wanting to re
spect Mrs. McNaughton’s privacy. She felt protective of the woman who had endured so much. No one had to know of her humiliations at Killoch’s hands. No one needed to see those pictures. “Nothing of any importance.”

  Murdo arrived bearing a bowl of pickled onions. Quentin looked up from his wine. “Ah, here we are! Ladies and gentlemen, may I present—our murderer!”

  The glassy-eyed prisoners looked up. “What the devil?” exclaimed Teddy.

  “Mr. Asquith—” Maggie said again.

  “Are you mad?” retorted Murdo, thumping the bowl down on the table. “I’m no killer.”

  “Well, of course he’d say that,” Quentin told the table.

  “Wait—you think it’s Murdo?” Anna looked at Sayid, then to Murdo, then back again, not convinced.

  “Why would I kill anyone?” bristled Murdo, even as his father put a warning hand on his shoulder.

  Quentin tipped back his glass, finishing it with a gulp. “You hate them all. Isn’t that what you told me?” He studied his empty goblet with feverish eyes. “And now we know who your father really is.”

  “Aye,” said McNaughton, warning in his voice. “We all know who his father is—me.”

  “I mean,” continued Quentin, undeterred, “his real father.”

  Around the table, everyone’s face except Maggie’s and Quentin’s registered shock.

  “What?” Murdo’s face flushed with anger. “What are you talking about? Are you daft?”

  “Sir Marcus, of course.” Quentin poured more wine. “Marcus Killoch is your biological father.”

  “No! You’re mad!” Murdo spun to look imploringly at McNaughton. “He’s mad! Isn’t he?”

  “The dates fit,” Quentin stated. Ramsey’s face registered disbelief, then dismay.

  “What the devil?” Leo muttered, bewildered.

  Teddy was quicker to do the sums in his head. “Good God.”

  “What dates? What the hell are you talking about?” Murdo asked.

  Quentin spoke slowly, as if to a small child. “You’re nineteen years old. You were born in August, nineteen twenty-three. You were conceived just before Marcus Killoch killed himself in November, nineteen twenty-two.”