The Prisoner in the Castle

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Sayid was the first of the group to run outside, Maggie at his heels. He knelt by the injured man, then gazed up to Maggie’s white face. “He’s still alive!” he yelled into the wind. “We need to get him inside!”

  Don’t you dare be number eight!

  “Don’t we need to remove the trap?” Leo asked.

  “No! Leave it—otherwise he could bleed to death.”

  They carried the injured man to the scarred wooden kitchen table. He was slipping in and out of consciousness, moaning and breathing hard. Sayid bent to examine the wound.

  “Oh, God in heaven!” Mrs. McNaughton rushed over. “Angus!”

  “He’s lost a lot of blood. Please find some clean sheets, Mrs. McNaughton,” Sayid said. “We’ll cut them up and use them for bandages. And a leather belt—we’ll use it as a tourniquet.” She nodded, her eyes wide with terror, and flew off.

  Maggie pulled him aside. “The McNaughtons and Lady Beatrix aren’t part of this,” she said. “What if you went with them to the ghillie’s cottage? You could treat McNaughton there and Murdo could keep watch. Mrs. McNaughton and Lady Beatrix could assist you.” She lowered her voice. “It would be easier to protect them from there.”

  “Good idea.” He nodded. “I can transport him using one of the ponies. Just promise me one thing.” He put a hand to her cheek. “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”

  “Of course.” Maggie smiled grimly.

  She turned to the rest of the group—now just Leo, Anna, Quentin, Teddy, and Ramsey. “Let’s go around and lock all the doors. We’ll do it in pairs. We must all stay together. This storm isn’t going to last forever.” She looked to Teddy and nodded, remembering their pact. He dipped his head in return. “And I intend for all of us to be alive to greet the rescue boat.”

  * * *

  —

  David and Durgin caught the train at King’s Cross Station, cold and smelling of coal smoke, crowded with businessmen, soldiers, and a noisy group of rosy-cheeked Land Girls. They settled in the first-class passenger car for the long ride on the green train nicknamed the Deerstalker Express. In first class, the seats were dark velvet, and over the compartment door was a framed painting of a golden eagle on a tree branch. The engines rumbled, and David sat next to the window and pulled up the shade to watch as women embraced their husbands, lovers, and sons, tears streaming down their faces.

  Durgin picked up a freshly ironed Daily Mirror. The headlines declared: ROMMEL ROUTED! HUNS FLEEING IN DISORDER! 9,000 Men Captured, 260 Tanks Destroyed, 600 Planes Knocked Out. He sat across from David. “Things seem to be going well in the desert, at least,” he remarked.

  David nodded, the shouts of the conductors echoing faintly from the corridor. “All aboard! All aboard!”

  “Old Monty has them on the run,” Durgin continued, gazing out the open window at the steam.

  “All aboard!” The engines rumbled and a high-pitched whistle sounded, and the train began to move. The two men listened to the soldiers in some of the other cars singing lustily over the chug-chug-chug of the wheels:

  If I catch you bending

  I’ll saw your legs right off

  Knees up, knees up

  Don’t get the breeze up

  Knees up, Mother Brown!

  “We’re late,” David remarked, checking his watch as the train gained speed and they slipped away from London.

  “The trains in Italy allegedly run on time,” Durgin retorted.

  “Point. I’d rather have our politics and late trains.”

  Durgin inclined his head. “Cheers.” A man in uniform came by to punch their tickets.

  “So…” David ventured. “You’re Scottish, then.”

  “Aye, Mr. Greene,” Durgin replied, making his Glaswegian accent even broader. “And a nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse.”

  “Sorry—no idea what that means.” A police officer entered the compartment, checking identity cards. They both proffered their documents; after examining them, the officer shuffled off. Outside, the pastures were shrouded by a mist of fine rain.

  “It means,” Durgin continued, “both actions are pointless.”

  “Ah,” said David. “How insightful.”

  Durgin grinned. “In Glasgow, if you say your father’s died, they’ll ask you, ‘What size was his shoes?’ We have a black sense of humor.”

  David laughed, delighted. “So, you think Scotland will ever declare independence?”

  “Not until the war’s over, certainly, but I do anticipate its coming.” Durgin closed the window against the damp and chill.

  “It will be the end of Britain as we know it,” David intoned.

  “The end of ‘Britain as we know it’ is already happening, my friend. It’s starting in India. And in Scotland, too. I’m certain the push for Scottish independence will begin with Glasgow. No offense meant, but in the corridors of power in London, and even in Edinburgh, they just don’t give a brass farthing about the rest of Scotland.” The midland mist coated the windows, condensing and falling in rivulets.

  “I’ve heard Glasgow’s pretty rough,” David said. “Is that how you became a policeman?”

  Durgin shook his head. “I eventually left Glasgow for Oxford with dreams of the ivory towers of academia, but I had what the doctors call a ‘cervical rib.’ ” He pointed to the right side of his chest. “A protrusion of bone, which caused a spot of pain. I went to hospital for surgery and my roommate happened to be a former officer of the Metropolitan Police Department. He’d been shot in the face, poor man, while trying to apprehend a suspect. So I was bored, and he was bored, and soon I had him talking about all of his adventures on the Force. It brought back the memory of all the Sherlock Holmes and Sexton Blake stories I’d loved as a young lad.”

  “But police work, detective work—it’s much different from the stories, yes?”

  “A universe away—the reality is that working a case is slow and often tedious. But murder detectives, well, we’ve seen it all—the worst human beings can do to each other. And I have a theory: we all have a capacity for violence, every last one of us. It’s our primal animal instinct: fight or run. Hunt or be hunted. So we must learn not to be violent. And then teach others not to be. Because no matter how good the police are, we can only contain the violence, not diminish it. Not end it.”

  “So we should embrace the murderers?” David asked. “Make them feel loved and wanted? Give them chocolate bars and teddy bears?”

  Durgin didn’t smile. “We’re all born with animal instincts, Mr. Greene, but people can be taught to use reason and logic. We need to teach alternatives to violence. That we’re not beasts, and don’t have to act like them. That we can stop, and take a moment. Think. And then talk things out. Because, let’s face it, what we’re doing now—it isn’t working. Certainly not in the long run. So my thought is—let’s try something different. Can’t make things much worse. And we just might make them better.”

  Durgin once again picked up the newspaper. “May I have the crossword?” David asked, and the Scotsman handed it to him as the fields turned into a tangle of brown woods, blurred by the rain.

  “You know, we could be too late,” Durgin said softly.

  “You don’t know Maggie the way I do,” David assured him. “I’ve seen her work in some tight situations. Nothing’s carved in stone.” He removed the fountain pen from his jacket pocket to start the crossword.

  “At least not yet.”

  Chapter Twenty

  With Sayid and the McNaughtons gone, Anna turned her attention to scrubbing blood off the kitchen table with rags and a bucket. “This is a nightmare,” the younger woman said. “Who do you think set the animal trap?”

  “The same person who’s trying to kill us all, obviously,” Quentin said.

  Leo leaned against the sink, watching the
m without offering to help. “With Mrs. McNaughton at the cottage, I don’t suppose you or Miss Hope could do something about breakfast?”

  “Breakfast?” Anna held up hands bloody from scrubbing. “How can you look at—at all this—and still think about breakfast?”

  “I’ll take a peek in the pantry,” Teddy volunteered. “See what we have.”

  “Relax, Lady Macbeth. I’m hungry is all,” Leo reassured Anna. “Doesn’t mean I’m a monster, just means I’m alive.” Lips pressed together, Anna dumped the contents of her cleaning bucket in the sink and ignored him.

  “I radioed Arisaig last night,” Maggie told them, “but I’m not sure they received the message. The weather’s affecting reception.”

  “Oh, they’ll come,” Quentin predicted. “Eventually. All we need to do is stay alive until then.”

  Teddy returned with apples, oatcakes, and slabs of dried venison. “This all right?”

  Leo curled his lip in distaste. “It will have to do.”

  Anna nodded. “I’ll finish up, then make the tea.”

  “So,” Quentin said, looking around at the four other faces surrounding the kitchen table—Maggie, Teddy, Anna, Ramsey. Leo alone remained standing. “It’s one of us six, then.”

  “Still could be Dr. Khan.” An ugly expression flickered across Anna’s face. “I don’t trust him.”

  “You don’t trust anyone,” Quentin pointed out. “The thing is”—he gnawed at dried venison—“everyone here’s capable of it. Murder, that is. We all know how to do it.”

  “But only one of us is a possible German spy,” Maggie reasoned. “Quentin, you told me your father hunted with Reichsmarschall Goering. What’s your connection to the family?”

  He scowled. “Well, Maggie—as long as we’re on a first-name basis now—the connection with Goering, and my command of German, is exactly what helped me into SOE. Because I’m British through and through, a patriot. And although I wasn’t cut out to be a soldier, I wanted to do my bit for King and country.”

  Their eyes locked. Quentin looked away first.

  Leo said, “I don’t like him much, either, Maggie, but I don’t think he’s a murderer.”

  “Who do you think is, then?” Teddy asked, gnawing at an apple.

  “Could be you, old man. Although, come to think of it, you don’t have the same training and skill set we all do. I’d especially like to hear what our man Ramsey has to say about all this. But wait—he doesn’t talk,” he said, glaring at the younger man. “What secrets are you conveniently hiding behind your silence, Ramsey?”

  Ramsey remained mute, his eyes on a water-splashed window. “It’s like some awful dream,” Anna complained. The kettle whistled, and she poured its contents into the pot. “Sit down.” She handed a brown Denby mug to Leo. “You look like an animal, eating standing up.”

  “I won’t sit down!” He flung the mug against the wall, where it shattered in an explosion of pottery and steaming water. “We’re about to die and I won’t sit around drinking bloody tea!” He stalked to the door, grabbing McNaughton’s oilskin from a hook.

  “Where are you going?” Maggie called.

  “Out. Away from all of you.”

  “Leo, don’t,” Teddy cautioned. “It’s not safe.”

  “I’m getting the devil out of here before I’m the next dead body.”

  “It’s dangerous out there,” Anna said.

  Leo laughed, a hard edge to it. “It’s dangerous in here.”

  “The storm hasn’t let up,” said Teddy.

  “Your touching concern is duly noted.”

  Teddy stared at him. “They’ll find you, you know. SOE. The police. You won’t get away with this.”

  Leo pawed through the coat’s pockets. “I always suspected the old man carried one,” he said, pulling out a pistol, then checking the barrel to make sure it was loaded. “Get away with this?” Leo reached for the doorknob. “You think I’m doing this? You’re mad, absolutely barking. I’ll take my chances with the deer.”

  “Leo, wait!” Maggie cried. The door slammed behind him, the panes rattling in their frames, a gust of wind chilling them all.

  Teddy grabbed Maggie’s arm before she could leap up. “Let him go.”

  “But the killer could still be out there.” Anna was on the verge of tears again.

  “How do we know he’s not the killer?” Teddy countered. “But he can’t get the boat out in these winds—he’ll end up smashed on the rocks.”

  “Or the killer could still be in here, hiding like Lady Beatrix,” Anna insisted. “I can’t believe it could be one of us. I mean, the Nazis are the real enemy, not a bunch of washed-up agents….”

  And then there were five.

  * * *

  —

  The ghillie’s cottage was built of the same blood-red sandstone as the castle, but unlike the castle, it was human in scale, a two-story building surrounded by still-blooming rosebushes.

  Sayid, Mrs. McNaughton, Lady Beatrix, and Murdo were bunched around the bed in the master chamber. McNaughton’s leg was bandaged and propped up on pillows and his eyes were closed. His breathing was erratic.

  “Do you think he’ll make it?” Murdo’s face was boyish with fear.

  “We will pray,” Mrs. McNaughton murmured, smoothing a lock of her son’s dark hair.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Sayid told them. “The sooner we can get him to the mainland and get him a transfusion, the better.”

  Mrs. McNaughton felt for the cross around her neck. “What if we can’t?”

  “We must.”

  “But the storm…How much time does he have?”

  “I’d like to see him in a proper hospital by this time tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll do my best.” Sayid glanced at Murdo. “Why don’t you take your mother downstairs and fix some tea and broth for Mr. McNaughton? We need to keep pushing fluids—there’s still one more night of this storm to weather.

  “And, please,” he added. “Please double-check the locks on every door and window.”

  * * *

  —

  Maggie was frowning, trying to work the case out on the sheet of paper spread before her on the kitchen table. Sooty was curled up in the warmth of her lap, sleeping. The cat twitched and extended a paw, as if hunting. The rest of the group were smoking and drinking cold tea. Quentin had a grease stain from the dried venison on his shirtfront, and Teddy was eating from a tin of baked beans.

  “Here’s a list of all the dead, in order, and with probable cause,” Maggie said, showing them her notes:

  NOVEMBER 12

  Captain Bernard Evans—poison, cyanide?

  NOVEMBER 13

  Ian Lansbury—head injury, drowning (discovered—death could have been November 12)

  NOVEMBER 15

  Dr. Jaeger—poison (discovered—death could have been November 14)

  Captain MacLean—poison, strychnine? (Ibid.)

  NOVEMBER 15

  Helene Poole-Smythe—poison, Veronal?

  NOVEMBER 17

  Camilla Oddell—harpoon (discovered—death could have been November 16)

  Torvald Hagan—garrote

  Beneath these names, she added:

  NOVEMBER 18

  Angus McNaughton, steel trap—STILL ALIVE

  “This is hell,” Anna murmured. “We’re all in hell.”

  “More like the fifth circle,” said Quentin, trying for humor and failing.

  “The boat’s not coming.” Anna was close to hysterics. “We’re all going to die here.”

  “It’s going to be all right,” Maggie said, trying to be reassuring.

  “It’s not all right! It’s never going to be all right! Ian is dead! Helene is dead! The rest of them are dead! And we’re next!” She drew in a raw, shaky breath.
“I just want to go home.”

  Don’t we all. “Anna!” Maggie snapped. “Pull yourself together! We are agents of His Majesty’s government. We will survive! You’re a trained agent—start acting like one.” While Anna’s eyes filled with tears, Maggie continued in a softer tone, “All we need to do is stay together until the storm ends.” She reached down to stroke the cat in her lap, taking comfort in his warmth.

  Anna was unconvinced. “If we make it that long…”

  Maggie always depended on logic in times of trouble. This was no different. “The first person dead, although not the first one found, was Ian Lansbury. Five days ago…Who was doing what on that day?”

  “I was inside, of course,” answered Quentin. “Poking around in the attic.”

  “Yes, but can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

  “There were no people with me,” he replied, stroking Monsieur Reynard.

  “Does anybody recall what Leo was up to?” Maggie asked.

  “He was out with Sayid,” Quentin said. “He told me he’d been hunting and Sayid had taken photographs.”

  “And neither of them are here now, to give their account,” Anna reminded them.

  “Actually, I ran into Leo and Sayid in the forest that day,” Maggie said. “They really were out there.”

  “But, let’s remember, four of the deaths were likely caused by poison—as a doctor, Sayid would know how to use that sort of thing, wouldn’t he?” There was no denying the accusation in Anna’s voice.

  “The poisons used were those found in any household, for wasps and rodents,” Teddy pointed out, lighting his pipe. “It doesn’t take a doctor’s license to slip something into someone’s food or drink.”

  “Noted,” Maggie replied. “And where were you, Anna?”

  “I was in the great room, drawing hat designs. I can show you my sketchbook…” The younger woman locked eyes with Maggie. “And where were you?”