He looked at Laurence almost questioningly as if asking for his approval.
'I can't let you stop me before I've dealt with Gough.'
'I think there would be a difference to you in kiling me,' Laurence said steadily.
The Webley looked wel maintained. Was it loaded? Somers was not yet pointing it at him, but held it by his side. Laurence was surprised to find just how much he wanted to live. He wondered what Mary would feel if he died.
'As you say, it al depends on motive,' he continued, amazed that his voice was steady. 'In war there's little choice. We both know that. Kiling is abhorrent to start with, but it becomes routine. Possibly you felt you had no choice with the men involved in Harry's death, which makes it a noble cause in your eyes. But shooting me would be for nothing more than your own convenience. You might justify it on the grounds of protecting Mrs Lovel, but I don't think that's what she'd want, certainly not here in her own house and probably not anywhere, for that matter. I don't think you want to shoot me. I suspect you're weary of the whole thing.'
He hoped it was true.
'You could be right,' Somers said slowly. 'I lied even to her. Denied I'd ever seen Emmett. It can't be done here.'
He stopped speaking and seemed to be finding it hard to concentrate, though the gun was now pointing directly at Laurence, who was now sure it was loaded.
'It's a bad business about Byers. But it doesn't take away the justice of my mission. If you'd had a son, you'd understand.'
Actualy, I did have a son,' said Laurence. 'He died too.'
In the end it was such a simple thing to say.
Somers seemed distracted by his response. The gun dropped again.
'I'm sorry. This is a bad business.'
He rubbed his eyes. Any energy in him was suddenly gone. He deflated almost visibly.
'Do you know, I feel terribly old al of a sudden? I thought I'd fought my wars long ago. I'l be glad when al this is finished...'
Then he seemed to recolect himself and looked straight at Laurence.
'Because you were so close, I finaly had to tel her,' he said bitterly. 'Teling Gwen the truth, was the worst thing I've ever had to do. Not Brabourne's truth, and certainly not Emmett's truth in al its searing detail, but a truth of betrayal. A truth she would have found out anyway. The scene that folowed was every bit as distressing as you could imagine. But she was no Marjorie, stoic and withdrawn. Gwen just wept in my arms. She got out al the photographs from when Harry was a little boy.
There were not a great many but she had kept them carefuly, and there were his letters home.'
He gestured to the bureau in the corner.
'Catherine was away. We sat until it became dark. Eventualy she lit the lamps, set the fire. I talked about Hugh and Miles for the first time realy since their death. Her tears were for them as wel as for their unacknowledged half-brother, Harry. Our sons. Some time after midnight we went up to bed.'
Instinctively Laurence looked down at the weapon, which Somers was holding without wavering, then made himself return to the other man's deeply furrowed but stil handsome face. The clock on the mantelpiece whirred but did not chime.
'Perhaps it would be for the best...?' Somers began slowly.
Laurence jumped as the door, which had been ajar, opened. For a moment he thought the gun had gone off. Gwen stood there, her face blotched, her hair unkempt.
Somers looked up and attempted a smile. 'Come in, my dear. We're nearly done.'
She walked slowly into the room. Directly behind her was Charles. Gwen stared at both men in front of her with horror and then glanced behind her at Charles, who, Laurence now noticed, was holding his own gun—the Luger—his usual affable expression replaced by one of alert hardness. Laurence's eyes went from Charles to Somers, then to Gwen, who had moved swiftly towards the general. The situation was both farcical and potentialy deadly. For a moment her body blocked Somers'
weapon, but he drew her to his side.
'Put down your gun,' Charles said firmly.
Somers stared at him, his gun as steady as ever, the barrel stil pointing at Laurence.
'I'm afraid it's not possible,' Somers said.
'Please, Gerald,' Gwen said. She reached out and placed her hand on top of Somers'. 'It's over. Enough people have died.'
Somers resisted for only a second. Then his right hand swung up and, holding her to him with his other arm, he pressed the barrel to Gwen's head.
'I'm sorry, my darling,' he said. 'How I wish you had never met me.'
Laurence sensed Charles's finger tighten on the trigger, bracing himself for a shot. Gwen's face drained of colour, her eyes wide.
Al of a sudden, Somers' gun arm fel to his side. Slowly Gwen Lovel reached over and took the weapon from him. She gazed down at it in her hand, weeping, and then, gingerly, laid it on the table. Laurence picked it up. It was loaded. He emptied out the bulets and put the gun in his pocket.
When he looked back, Gwen had her arms around her lover and his head was bowed on her shoulder. She was trembling but stroking his head as if he were a child. Her eyes met those of Laurence. He could not read her face. Finaly, Somers lifted his head. Charles glanced at Laurence, stil firmly holding his own gun.
'Would you accept my word that I wil turn myself in? It has a little more dignity about it.' Somers appealed directly to Laurence, sensing that the decision ultimately lay with him. 'Let me have twenty-four hours here, so that I can see Gwen straight. Her family in Germany can't forget she took the other side in the war—her nephews were kiled. She has no one else but Catherine. Tomorrow, on my honour, on that of my three sons, I'l let justice take its course.'
Laurence thought quickly. If Somers didn't turn himself in within twenty-four hours, they could tel the police, who could protect General Gough until Somers was found. However, he couldn't think how they would explain the delay and what if Somers went through with the murder of Gough before then?
Charles raised an eyebrow; he too wanted it to be Laurence's choice.
Eventualy Laurence spoke. 'Al right.' He was so weary. He doubted that Somers had the energy to continue his campaign; he doubted that Gwen would let him out of her sight. Despite having other reservations, he didn't want to be the one to turn a decent, honourable man over to the hangman. Gwen Lovel had already lost so much. It al sickened him.
Somers seemed to sag and Gwen helped him into a chair.
'But just as you wanted your truth, I want to be able to tel John Emmett's sister what happened to him,' Laurence said firmly.
Somers stiffened slightly and looked uneasy. His glance flickered to Gwen, then back to Laurence.
'How did you get him to your house?'
'By car. I visited Holmwood a week or so before Christmas. Drove around the lanes not far from the vilage. Parked the car half a mile away behind some abandoned farm buildings, with a blanket over the engine. Couldn't risk it not starting when it was needed, though in the event the weather was mild. Walked to Holmwood. Went through the motions of having a meeting with Chilvers. Met my poor old friend Emmett: al sanctioned by Chilvers, with tea and cucumber sandwiches. The good doctor was keen to accommodate the valiant but shel-shocked son of a titled friend that I'd mentioned to him. Emmett thought I was there to represent Mrs Lovel. He was longing to see her; never was a man so obliging in the arrangements for his own removal.'
Gwen shuddered. Laurence thought she might faint, but she clung to Somers' arm.
'I wanted more information. I wanted him. Told them al at Holmwood that I'd arrived by train. Gave Emmett the directions to the car. Young Chilvers, an egregious braggart, even took me to catch a train home.
'Nobody to notice at home whether I had or hadn't got the car: one of the few advantages of having lost your entire family. Told my gardener it was being repaired. Agreement was that Emmett would get away when he could, pick up the motor car and drive over to my place at Fawler. He was stil confined to his room, more or less, or under constant supervision, but
this suited me, as he was hardly likely to tel anyone of our plan. He thought Christmas Day would be his only chance to get away as he knew they'd al be taken to church. As far as I was concerned, Christmas was ideal as anybody who had a family would be with them. He thought I'd drive him back eventualy, of course. I left a map in the car but he said he'd been at school not so far away and knew the area.'
'Yes,' said Laurence. 'We were at Marlborough together.' Then he suddenly remembered. 'May I get something?' Gwen nodded. Laurence went over to his coat, felt in the deep pocket and puled out a grubby striped scarf. 'This was yours, wasn't it?'
Somers looked down and touched it. 'Miles's scarf, from Welington. His team colours.' He turned back the corner, looked at the school number, then took the scarf in both hands. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I'm glad to have it.' Laurence could see him making connections. 'Was it with John Emmett when he died?'
Laurence nodded. 'I came here on my way to see Tresham Brabourne—taking it to see whether he could confirm the school and identify the initials.'
Somers didn't respond for a while. Finaly he said, 'I gave it to Emmett as we left the house because he looked so cold. Miles didn't need it. I wasn't going to need it again.'
Gwen made no move to touch Somers. Laurence felt indecent, watching her world colapse.
'I don't believe John had to die. I don't understand why,' Laurence said.
'It isn't hard,' Somers replied. 'He died because he kiled my son.'
Laurence was struggling to see this rational, decent man as an unstable, flawed avenger. He thought to himself that, if anything, John had died because he had not kiled Hart.
'There was no connection in al this with a Frenchman caled Meurice?' he asked on the spur of the moment. Somers' expression was uncomprehending and his head shook almost imperceptibly.
As they reached the front door, Laurence turned to Gwen Lovel. She hadn't put on the light in the hal and in the open doorway her face was dark.
'Your son was a wonderful poet,' he said. 'He had a magical gift and he spoke for al of us. He should have lived.'
She was silent.
He folowed Charles down her chequerboard path and didn't look back. Even as he shut the gate behind him, he stil wasn't sure he had made the right decision.
Would Somers have shot him but for Gwen Lovel and Charles's adventitious arrival? How close had Somers been to shooting Mrs Lovel?
He stood for a second, feeling the weight of Somers' gun in his pocket, and looked in through the open curtains. Somers and Mrs Lovel were sitting opposite each other in the front room. They could have been any middle-aged couple about to make cocoa and go to bed.
As he and Charles trudged up the street towards the car he spoke. 'So, what made you come and find me?'
'Saved by an old soldier. You were hardly through Mrs Lovel's door,' Charles said, 'when I noticed Nicholas Bolitho had left his wooden guardsman in the footwel of the car. I thought I could just whizz back and give it to Mrs Bolitho and stil get to Savile Row. But Mrs Bolitho—Eleanor—wanted to give me a message for you. It was something she'd remembered. She thought she might have come across the man in the photograph. She was thrown when you showed it to her because he was so much thinner in the picture than when she'd nursed him, and she'd known him as Harry not Edmund. But it was the name that niggled at her, because Hart was a German name as wel as a British one, and that made her think, because she'd once had a British patient with a German name. And she thought it was him. She remembered that, because they'd had prisoners of war as temporary orderlies and she had heard Hart joking with them. Harry spoke perfect German, she said. When she warned him to be careful who overheard him—feelings were running high after some bad losses—he told her his mother was half German and had been a classical singer in Berlin and that he'd been born in Germany. Wel, after we'd left—what a mind that woman has—Eleanor starting putting two and two together. Almost as good as Mrs Christie. Apparently you'd told her Mrs Lovel had once been a singer in Germany?'
'I've no idea. I may have done.'
'So I said, "But our Hart was born in England. We checked. In Winson in the Cotswolds. Can't get much more British than that." She gave me a very long, teacher-like look and said, "Winsen is a city in Lower Saxony." But the next bit's interesting. She said that ilness and long, sleepless nights often had the effect of causing men to unburden themselves of secrets. At one point, the lad had also told her that his father was a famous British military man, but that he had never met him and that his mother didn't even know that he'd found out. Eleanor thought it was a fantasy—a product of fever and unhappiness.'
'He knew Somers was his father al along?'
'Wel, possibly not al along. But he knew. It can't have been that hard for a enquiring boy.'
Laurence thought of that other enquiring boy, John Emmett, who had discovered that his sister was not his father's child. He also remembered puzzling over Brabourne's account of Hart's dying words. So the boy died believing that his father, the courageous officer, would be ashamed of him. Laurence was glad Somers need never know.
'Once she'd remembered the name,' Charles said, 'she recaled that, like Emmett, he was something of a poet. She didn't know whether they'd met but thought John might have seen some of Hart's work.'
'Dear God. But what made you break in?'
'Wel, Eleanor was suddenly uneasy. Mostly because she was sure you were going to blunder in, oblivious, waving your waiting-for-dawn photograph at the mother of a dead man, which of course was precisely what you did.' Charles looked smug. 'But partly she, and I, just had a bad feeling about it. About Mrs Lovel, to be honest. Had a hard time stopping Eleanor coming along. Thought I might as wel come to the house, gun in pocket; knew you wouldn't approve if you saw it. If al was wel, or you'd just got yourself in an emotional pickle with Mrs L, I could have done my "can't sit freezing my bolocks off in the car any longer" speech. If al was not wel, then I could weigh in. QED. Looked in through the window, saw Somers. A famous military man, no less, in Mrs L's parlour. And then I saw the gun in his hand. Pointing at you.'
'Thank you. You may just have saved my life.'
'I don't think so for a minute,' said Charles. 'I don't think he ever intended to hurt you and I'm certain he wouldn't have done anything more to hurt Mrs Lovel. I think you just caught them unexpectedly. He improvised while he decided what to do. The gun simply gave him time, although I thought better of announcing myself by the front door once I'd seen it. Went round the back. Found Mrs Lovel sitting at the pantry table, al these papers and photographs spread out around her, and her head on her arms, weeping. I just tapped, smiled. She jumps up, very embarrassed to be caught red-eyed and wild-haired, and lets me in, easy as you please. Neither of them exactly has a criminal bent. My guess is she wanted it stopped.'
'Your rescue mission could have gone hideously wrong.'
'Hard to see Somers as a kiler.'
'I think he saw himself as a warrior. Soldiers at war aren't murderers. They're heroes. Somers was fighting a battle.'
'I don't expect Mrs Lovel knew?'
'Not at first. Later she may have suspected something was amiss but it's not as if Somers was living with her or as if the news of each death was a headline murder until Mulins. She didn't even know the names of the men involved in her son's execution. She didn't even know he'd been shot at dawn. I think Somers only told her when Brabourne contacted him about where the photograph was.'
'But she knows now,' Charles said grimly. 'She heard much of your conversation.'
'I think she already knew. She may have found out only recently. But she knew.'
He remembered the sad but calm, candid woman he had met a matter of weeks ago. Since he first saw her, her spirit had been crushed.
'But what I want to know,' Charles went on, more slowly, 'is how did the general persuade Emmett to break bounds and meet him, then go off to some godforsaken wood in the middle of winter?'
'The meeting was easy. He simply asked h
im to come. Said Gwen Lovel would be there. John could tel her everything, as he longed to do. Why John then went with him to such a remote spot, I don't think we'l ever know. He knew the Foly from school, of course.'
'When did Somers shoot him?'
Laurence shook his head, stil unable to understand why it had ended there. Somers obviously wanted to kil him away from the house and presumably John just trusted him.
'Probably a couple of days after they met. He didn't want to interrogate John at Holmwood, apart from anything else. He certainly didn't want him reaching Gwen and giving her every miserable detail. He'd promised she'd be at his house. How long could he stal, even when he'd told John the truth about his son? Yet John was torn apart with remorse, did what he could to make some kind of restitution. Was honest with Somers himself. I should think Mrs Lovel was horrified to know Somers kiled him. I don't think she knew that until tonight. After al, Emmett had only wanted to help her.'
Nevertheless, he reflected that Somers, who had gone out of his way to mutilate the men he'd kiled, had been careful to leave John's face untouched.
'What are you going to tel Mary?'
'The truth, I suppose. Before anyone else does.'
'And the police?'
'I'l give him his twenty-four hours.'
Charles shrugged. They sat in the car and stil he made no move to go. Three girls passed them, arm in arm, singing a Christmas carol.
'You don't realy believe that there'l ever be a trial?' Charles said.
'No.'
'Wil he do the decent thing?'
'Possibly.'
'So you think that him putting an end to himself would be a better outcome than the galows?'
'Yes, I do, actualy. A trial would only injure more people.'
'And you don't think there's a risk to Mrs Lovel and the girl?'
'No,' said Laurence, trying to suppress a flicker of uncertainty. 'He had his chance and he couldn't face it.'
Nevertheless, whatever happened to Somers, he thought, the future looked bleak for the Lovels, both mother and daughter.
The Return of Captain John Emmett Page 35