Meet a Dark Stranger

by Jennifer Wilde

  “Will you excuse me? I don’t mean to be rude, but—”

  “Rude, schmood! Everyone’s rude to old folks! No patience. No respect! Can’t spare a minute for a friendly chat. Well, no need to apologize, dearie. I understand. I’m quite accustomed to being ignored and neglected. Come, I’ll walk you to the door. At least I have good manners. I had hoped we might have a game of cards, but I can see you’re bursting to get away—”

  She threw open the front door. I stepped outside.

  “I—I enjoyed the tea and cakes, Augusta. Thank you.”

  “Not that I suppose you will, but you might drop back by some time. We could chat some more. I realize I’m a dreary, boring old woman, a decaying old fossil, and you’ve got important things to do, but if you happen to feel like a chat—”

  “I’ll come back,” I promised.

  “Humph! I’ll believe that when it happens. And if you see that ungrateful young Rebecca you can tell her I’m receiving no more callers today. She had her chance and she blew it! I intend to give the rest of the cakes to that stray cat that hangs around the garden—”

  I finally made my escape, seething with anger at my audacious young niece as I marched briskly back to the house. She met me in the front hall, a bland, innocent expression on her face. Hands thrust in her hip pockets, head cocked to one side, she listened with an infuriating nonchalance as I began my scathing tirade.

  “—and furthermore, young lady, it’s not fair to me for you to dash about like that, getting into mischief. What if you’d fallen out of that tree and broken your neck!”

  “You needn’t get hysterical about it,” she said.

  “Eavesdropping! How long were you up there?”

  “Quite a while,” she replied, unconcerned. “I saw Cynthia going up the walk and I dashed right over and got up the tree just as Mrs. Ward brought her into the back room.”

  “Becky, I was worried about you. Don’t you realize how wicked it is to listen to—”

  “It was important,” she told me.

  “I just don’t understand—” I shook my head, frowning. “Why can’t you play with dolls or something?”

  She gave me a patient, tolerant look, the kind of look one might give a simple-minded but well-intentioned child. Then, sighing, she turned and started up the stairs.

  “Where are you going now?” I demanded.

  “Up to my room. I’ve gotta take notes on everything I heard. By the way, did you put on that sweater for him?”

  I frantically looked around for something to throw at her, and Becky scurried on up the stairs, tittering merrily. I smiled in spite of myself. I really should have punished her severely, I knew. The little wretch deserved solitary confinement and bread and water for the next two days, but I was much too tender-hearted. All three of them could get round me with outrageous ease, and they knew it.

  Keith returned from the library a short time later, laden with half-a-dozen large, heavy technical books with titles I couldn’t even pronounce, and Liz came zooming through the house like a painted, chattering dragonfly with jangling charm bracelets and purple-coated eyelids, finally lighting in front of the telly to watch a blood-and-thunder thriller. Keith retired to his room to pour over his books, and, her notes duly inscribed, Becky appropriated a box of cookies and a bottle of pop and joined her sister in front of the telly. In my letter to her, I had foolishly promised Cass that the book would be done when I returned, and as it looked as though peace might prevail for the next couple of hours, I decided to try and do a bit of work.

  Going up to my bedroom, I fetched the briefcase from the wardrobe and took it downstairs to the library, closing the door behind me to shut out the sound of machine gun fire and savage yells issuing from the telly. The library was my favorite room with its dark marble fireplace, large polished Sheraton desk and comfortable old chairs. Shelves rose from floor to ceiling on three walls, crammed with thousands and thousands of books accumulated over the decades by generations of Martins. There were fine leather-bound sets of Dickens, Balzac, Scott, all battered and well-read, technical books, volumes of sermons, Victorian best sellers in mauve and purple bindings with flowered spines, hundreds of thrillers, a multitude of biographies, children’s books, encyclopedias, books on gardening and archeology and science, travel books, historical novels in bright, tattered dust jackets, all arranged helter-skelter, Shakespeare leaning against Nancy Mitford, John Dunne crammed between Freya Stark and Clemence Dane. The room smelled of paper and dust and glue. Rays of sunlight slanted through the front windows to make pools of gold on the faded garnet carpet.

  I had spent many hours here as a child, curled up in front of the fire on rainy days, leafing through picture books and, later on, climbing up the sliding mahogany ladder to pull down various “forbidden” books kept on the topmost shelves. I looked at the revolving gold-and-brown globe on its polished oak stand, the long Jacobean table now littered with magazines and unanswered mail and Keith’s blueprints, the original Hogarth prints hanging on the wall between the two front windows, immediately behind the desk. It was a snug, welcoming room, and the heavy oak door shut out the blaring noise of the telly. I sat down at the desk, pushed aside the paraphernalia cluttering the top of it and started to open the briefcase.

  It was locked.

  How strange, I thought, frowning. I never locked it. In fact, I had lost the key a week or so after Cass gave me the case. No, it couldn’t be locked. It must be jammed. I pulled and pushed and tugged, but the briefcase wouldn’t open. Muttering an impassioned damn, I reached for the flat bronze letter opener I had pushed aside. I pried. I prized. I finally jammed the point of the letter opener into the lock and jiggled furiously. To no avail. Angry now, unreasonably so, I stabbed the opener under the edge of the lock and jabbed, finally tearing the whole lock off. Cheeks flushed, brows scowling, I opened the case.

  I stared at the contents in stunned amazement. There was no manuscript, there were no watercolors, no work pads, no paints, no pens. A sickeningly sweet scent assailed my nostrils. There must have been fifty celophane packets of dried grass. Grass … that’s what they called it. Now I understood why. There were other packets, too, smaller, containing something that looked like sugar. I stared, horrified, while all the color drained out of my face.

  7

  The sergeant was tall and boyishly handsome, with light brown hair and very blue eyes. He sat across from me in the large office, splendid-looking in his tailored blue uniform and undeniably ill at ease. He was accustomed to dealing with hooligans, to breaking up fights, to quelling campus disturbances, and I could see that he would do so with firm, mannerly force, but he was certainly not accustomed to calming hysterical women while his superiors held a hushed, intense conference in the next room. I had refused the cups of tea he had offered, had ignored his attempts at idle chitchat, and poor Sergeant Brown wore a miserable expression, wishing he were anywhere but here in the office with me.

  I sat on the cracked brown leather sofa, watching the rays of sunlight stream through the window to stain the shabby tan carpet with wavering gold pools and gleam on the sides of the battered oak desk. Sergeant Brown sat with his arms folded across his chest, his chair tilted back against the wall, gazing at the posters and notices tacked profusely on the large bulletin board on the opposite wall. Three huge gray metal filing cabinets stood in one corner, a rather dusty portrait of the Queen hanging directly above them, and a pot of red geraniums stood on the window ledge. I tried to be very calm. I tried to be cool. I wanted to scream. Would they ever finish their silly conference? When were they going to do something?

  I had left the house immediately after opening the briefcase, telling the children I had to run a little errand and smiling pleasantly, smuggling the briefcase out to the car without anyone seeing me. As I made my way to the police station, I grew more and more hysterical, and when I finally got to speak to Constable Clark I must have been almost incoherent. He was a sober, patient man, stout and gray-haire
d, toying with his pipe while I spilled out my story, idly examining the briefcase spread open on top of his desk. He asked a few questions, made a couple of phone calls and then asked me to wait here with Sergeant Brown.

  “You don’t understand!” I cried. “My manuscript—”

  “We’ll do all we can to get it back for you, Miss Martin.”

  “It’s irreplaceable! I’ve worked on that book for months, and—”

  “Try to be calm, Miss Martin. There are some things I need to discuss with my colleagues. This is very important. It might mean a breakthrough. We’ve been after that lot all summer, and this supply of drugs is the first real evidence we’ve latched onto. I’m going to need your assistance. If you’ll just wait—”

  That was over an hour ago. Behind the closed door I could hear their voices, low, rumbling, frequently rising as though in some kind of disagreement. The children would begin to worry about me if I wasn’t back soon. They had no idea where I had gone. It was after four now. Why were they taking so long? I glanced irritably across the room at the sergeant. He drew back nervously, almost as though he expected me to attack. Poor man. He was really quite charming, a lamb. I’d been terribly rude to him. I was just about to make amends when the door opened and Constable Clark came back in, pipe cupped in his hand, a sober look in his intelligent brown eyes.

  “Well?” I said.

  “How brave are you, Miss Martin?”

  “Brave? I’m not at all brave. What a silly question. Have you decided what you’re going to do? Have you—”

  “That’s going to depend on you,” he interrupted.

  “On me? I don’t see—”

  “You could be of great assistance to us, Miss Martin. You could do a great service. I have no right to ask you but, as I said earlier, this might mean a breakthrough. With your help, we might be able to round up the gang behind all this.”

  I stared at him. I wanted to laugh. It was absurd, the whole thing. It was like a parody of one of Becky’s television dramas. Things like this simply didn’t happen, not in real life. I wasn’t a glamorous, dedicated heroine, I was just a perfectly ordinary girl, rather lazy, blithely unconcerned about major issues and causes, and this was a dusty, ordinary office in a peaceful college town, not the set for some BBC thriller. Constable Clark looked at me with a level gaze, his brow furrowed, his mouth a tightly-compressed line.

  “I—I don’t understand what you want me to do,” I said nervously. “I don’t see how I—”

  “There was obviously a mix-up at the train station.” He spoke with a grim sobriety. “You picked up the wrong briefcase. It’s natural to assume that someone else took yours. It contained your manuscript, and your name was on the title page. You said someone tried to break into the house last night—do you follow me?”

  I nodded, feeling suddenly weak and frightened.

  “You say no one saw you come here?”

  “No—no. I took precautions.”

  Precautions. That was hardly the word for it. I had placed the briefcase in a bright orange-and-yellow-flowered shopping bag, had piled a shawl on top of it. I had parked Ian’s car several blocks away, had wandered up and down side streets like someone in a spy movie before finally slipping into the police station by a side door, absolutely terrified that someone would see me. My poor nerves. They were about to snap. I needed a drink, desperately. Constable Clark seemed to be reading my mind. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle.

  “This has been an ordeal for you, Miss Martin. I quite understand how you feel. You’re in a rather sticky position, and whether you chose to cooperate with us or not, I’ll see that you have proper protection. You fell into this completely by accident. The innocent frequently stumble into ugly situations. We’ll do all we can to help you out of it.”

  “I—I just can’t believe it—”

  “Perhaps I should give you a little background. Drugs aren’t new, of course. They’ve been around a long time. Some call it the twentieth-century curse. I’m inclined to agree. Up until a few months ago, Abbotstown was relatively free of the curse—oh, there was a certain amount of traffic, there always is around a university, but it was relatively mild, an occasional pot party, nothing we couldn’t control. Then, suddenly, there was a rash of robberies, purses were snatched in broad daylight, houses were broken into—it’s grown steadily worse. Drugs are responsible, of course. Abbotstown has suddenly become a major market. Our young people, the university students—they’re being preyed upon. We want to get the men behind it.”

  “Of course,” I said feebly.

  “A short while ago, a young man’s body was found in the fields outside of town—quite near your brother’s house, in fact. Inquest to the contrary, I have reason to believe that boy was murdered. We weren’t able to prove it—there was no apparent motive for murder—and the death was officially listed as an accident, but I think Bob Hamilton was murdered just the same.”

  He paused, studying my face.

  “We’re dealing with ruthless criminals, Miss Martin.”

  I said nothing.

  “Will you help us?”

  I made no reply at first. I stared at the red geraniums without seeing them. Sergeant Brown shifted his weight uneasily in his chair. Constable Clark fumbled with his pipe, finally lighting it. I thought about Keith and Liz and Becky. What if they became a prey to those fiends? It could happen. I didn’t fool myself on that score. It happened in the very best of families, to the very finest young people. It was a curse, just as Constable Clark had said. If there was anything I could do … I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders.

  “I’ll do anything I can.” My voice was calm, resolute.

  “I hoped you’d see things our way,” he replied. “Whoever brought that briefcase to Abbotstown has every reason to believe you still have it, Miss Martin. We want him to keep on thinking that.”

  “I—I see. I’m to be—bait?”

  “You might put it that way. He tried to retrieve the briefcase last night. He’ll try again, no question about it.”

  “The children—” I exclaimed. “They’re alone at the house—”

  “Your house is being watched at this very moment. One of our men is sitting in an unmarked car down the street a way, studying a road map, and another of our men is in the fields behind the house, wearing checked tweeds and a preposterous green cap, a pair of binoculars around his neck, a book on bird-watching under his arm.”

  “You—you work fast.”

  “We try to run an efficient organization, Miss Martin.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We want you to sit tight and pretend that you haven’t even opened the briefcase, and we want you to go about your business in a perfectly normal fashion, as though nothing in the world were wrong. This will minimize your personal danger. As long as he thinks you don’t know—” He paused again, staring down at the pipe in his hand. “It will require a certain amount of acting ability on your part, granted, and you’ll be under a certain amount of strain, but you look like a level-headed young woman. Think you can do it?”

  “You mean I’m just supposed to—to sit there and wait?”

  “On the contrary, you’re to go about your business in normal fashion, as I said, go shopping, go visiting, take the children on outings, do whatever you ordinarily do. Even though you won’t be aware of it, you’ll be under constant surveillance.”

  “You think he—whoever it is—will—”

  “He’ll make a move, yes. He’ll try to get the briefcase back at any cost. When he makes his move, we’ll make ours.”

  “I—see.”

  “I have a colleague from Scotland Yard here with me,” he continued in a calm, businesslike voice. “He’s been working with us, under cover. He’s given a couple of lectures at the university on pre-Columbian art, gave one yesterday, as a matter of fact. Everyone thinks he’s an art dealer.”

  “Like John Mannering,” I said.

  “Who?�
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  Constable Clark was obviously unfamiliar with the Baron.

  “He has a—uh—rather special interest in this affair. He’s going to be staying with you.”

  “What!”

  “Just during the night,” Constable Clark explained. “I agree with him that you shouldn’t be alone in the house after dark. He’ll slip into the house after night falls, slip out at dawn. I don’t know how you’ll explain him to the children, but they mustn’t know the real reason he’s there. No one else must know anything about it. They mustn’t tell anyone.”

  “This is growing more and more complicated.”

  “It’s asking a lot of you, I know.”

  “Oh, I’m game,” I said lightly. “I’ll feel exactly like a goat staked out on a tiger hunt in India, but I’m game. It should be interesting, to say the least.”

  He grinned. It was a lovely grin, revealing the warm, humorous man behind the official facade. “That’s the spirit, Miss Martin.”

  “Don’t kid yourself I’m doing this for any noble reasons. I just want my manuscript back.”

  “Well, that’s settled,” he said, sighing. He shuffled some of the papers littering the top of the desk. I stood up. “I’ll give you the shopping bag back—you’ll need it in case someone saw you with it. You might go by one of the shops and buy something, just for cover. And, oh yes—” he added, almost as an afterthought, “you’ll want to meet my colleague before you leave. Be a good lad and fetch him for us, Brown, will you?”

  Sergeant Brown left, and I shook my head, still finding this hard to believe. It was preposterous, exactly like one of those silly television dramas. I almost expected a director to yell “Cut!” as the sergeant closed the door. For some reason I couldn’t take it seriously, and I suppose it was just as well. Deep down, I was frightened out of my wits, and I knew I had to keep hold of myself. If I once gave in to that fear, if I once acknowledged the gravity of the situation, I’d fall apart, shatter into a dozen pieces. After all, I told myself, it isn’t as though I’m in any real danger. I kept telling myself that, over and over again.