Past Imperative [Round One of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

  "Actually the treatment of choice in such cases is a kiss."

  "No, that's a discredited superstition. Kisses overexcite the patient."

  "They are good for the heart and stimulate the circulation."

  "I'm sure they do. Seriously, how are you feeling?"

  "Bored."

  "Doesn't your leg hurt?"

  "Throbs a bit once in a while. No, I'm in tip-top shape."

  "You shaved off your mustache!"

  "Actually that gale in early June did for it."

  Alice glanced over the floral display with appreciation. “Impressive! Are all of them from barristers and solicitors or are some of them personal?"

  She was not conventionally beautiful. Her hair was a nondescript brown, although bright and shiny. Her teeth were possibly on the large side, her nose might have been better had it been a thirty-second of an inch shorter. Overall, her face could almost be described as horsey—although not safely in Edward's hearing—but she had poise and humor and he would rather gaze at her than any woman in the world.

  "Has Uncle been to see you?"

  "He has. Have you got your money out of him yet?"

  "These things take time,” she said confidently.

  "Till the Nile freezes? He's spent it all on his lousy cannibals! He's brought light to the heathen by burning your five-pound notes!"

  "I think it's just his very muddled accounting."

  She shrugged and glanced at the watch on her slim wrist—his present for her twenty-first, bought with money saved out of Mr. Oldcastle's regular donations. “We'll see. Let's not waste time talking about the Black Death. Mrs. Peters has been a love, but I absolutely must catch the 3.40. Tell me what happened the weekend before Whitsun."

  "Before Whitsun? By Jove, that was when I took the most gorgeous girl in the world out to the park and explained—"

  "Not in London. At Fallow.” Again she glanced warningly at the door, where the copper must be writing all this down. “I was tracked down at the hotel by your Ginger Jones. He gave me those books for you. He wants them back. I gather they're all racy French novels he didn't dare let you read when you were a pupil."

  "They don't sound like my cup of tea."

  She grinned momentarily—that intimate, secretive grin that had meant mischief in their childhood and now hinted at vastly more magnificent possibilities. Or at least he hoped it would, one day soon.

  "You're a big boy now. You're going to be even taller if that leg stretches much, you know. Do you suppose the other one will reach the ground? The weekend before Whitsun you got an exeat and while you were gone there was a burglary at Tudor."

  Why was this important, when they had only an hour to be together and the entire future threatened to crumble in ruins?—his personal future, the Empire, Europe.... Why talk about a nonsensical schoolboy prank? But her expression said it was important, and he would not argue with her.

  "Ginger knows more about it than I do. He never really convinced anyone else that it was a burglary. The bobbies listened politely and yawned. The front door was still bolted on the inside. Some chaps in Big School were in on the wheeze, whatever it was, but their door was bolted, too. A couple of juniors claimed they saw a woman wandering through the dorms, but they couldn't have been very convinced at the time, because they just went back to sleep. It was dodgy, all right, but no one ever did work it out.” He stared at her doubt and then said, “We are discussing a community of three hundred juvenile males. Do you expect sanity?"

  Alice reached for the Times on the bed and began using it as a fan. “He said something about a spear."

  "Oh?” Ginger had mentioned that, had he? “A Zulu assegai from the Matabele display in Big School was left in my room in Tudor. That seems to have been the whole point, if you'll pardon an obscure pun. Possibly there had been scandalous rumors about what I was doing in town that night. Prefects sometimes make enemies, if they wallop a little too hard or too often, although I had been remarkably self-controlled for weeks before that, in anticipation of seeing you. Apart from that, nothing was missing or ... What's wrong?"

  "Where exactly was this spear when you found it?"

  "Ginger found it. He made a complete search. He has keys to all the rooms, of course."

  "Thrust right through your mattress?"

  "So he said. Why is he riding this hobbyhorse again?"

  Alice glanced at the door, giving him a view of her profile. She looked best in profile, rather like Good Queen Bess in her prime.

  "Mr. Jones is wondering now if you were supposed to be present when the spear was rammed through your bed. Your name was on your door, right? Whoever it was broke into Big School and located your house in the files—someone had been rummaging there, too, he said. Then the intruder pulled two steel brackets off the wall to get the assegai, went across to Tudor and found your room. You were missing, and in a fit of frust—"

  Edward started to laugh and jarred his leg. “Bolting and unbolting doors from the wrong side? A lock is one thing, but a bolt is another! The old coot's off his rocker!"

  Alice did not seem to have noticed his wince. She smiled. “He did admit he reads the penny dreadfuls he confiscates.” Then she sobered. “He now assumes that there has been a second attempt, and this time the wrong man...” She raised an eyebrow archly, waiting for Edward to complete the thought.

  "Strewth! I always thought the old leek was one of the sanest men there. Why should anyone try to kill me, of all people? I have no money. Even if Holy Roly's left anything of the family fortune for me to inherit, it will be only a few hundred quid. I have no enemies that I can think of."

  Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.... Why had he thought of those lines? Oh yes, that weird dream of a Dickensian apparition claiming to be Mr. Oldcastle. Two nights ago, and yet it still stuck in his memory. Dear friends?

  "Anyone can have enemies,” Alice said emphatically.

  He thought of the letter, but he would not worry her with that until Mr. Oldcastle had commented on it.

  "You refer to my brains, good looks, and personal magnetism, of course. Admittedly they arouse enormous envy wherever I go, but that's only to be expected. Rival suitors are the real threat. Seeing the burning love you bear me in every bashful glance, consumed with jealousy, some dastard seeks to clear me from the field. Who can it be, this wielder of spears who opens bolts from the wrong side of..."

  Alice raised both eyebrows and he stopped, feeling stupid. She did not speak, but her eyes said a lot. Ginger must have his reasons. Explain one impossible intruder and you might be able to claim another? Did a bolted door in the Grange case make Edward Exeter the only possible suspect in the killing of Timothy Bodgley?

  "It's an interesting problem,” she said, toying with her gloves. “What about the woman the boys thought they'd seen? Did they mention her before or after the unbolted door was found?"

  "I have no idea! I can't believe you'd swallow any of this. You are usually so levelheaded!"

  "Reliable boys?"

  "Good kids,” he admitted.

  "Mr. Jones said that perhaps you, as prefect, uncovered some hints that the masters didn't. Often happens, he said."

  "Not in this case. Most of the chaps tried to blame the suffragettes. The Head was pretty steamed. He canceled a half holiday because no one would own up."

  "Is that usual?"

  "Communal punishment, or no one having the spunk to own up?"

  "Both."

  "Neither,” he admitted. And even rarer was the absence of any retaliation on the culprits by those who had suffered unjustly, but there had been none of that at all, or he'd have heard of it.

  Into his mind popped a sudden image of solemn little Codger Carlisle, nervousness making all his freckles show like sand, babbling of a woman with long dangling curls and a very white face. He could have been describing that half memory from the Grange that still haunted Edward! Codger would never be capable of
telling a convincing lie if he lived to be a hundred. It must be coincidence! Or else in his drugged stupor in the hospital Edward had remembered that testimony and converted one fiction into another.

  He returned Alice's stare for a moment before he realized that she was genuinely worried. “Forget the silly prank, darling! It was months ago. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what happened at the Grange, the thing we mustn't talk about. Let's talk about us!"

  "What about us?"

  "I love you."

  She shook her head. “I love you dearly, but not that way. There is nothing to discuss, Edward. Please don't let's go through all that again! We're first cousins and I'm three years older—"

  "That matters less and less as time goes by."

  "Nonsense! In 1993 I shall be a hundred years old and you will only be ninety-seven and still pursuing wenches when I need you to wheel me around in my Bath chair. I hope we shall always remain the best of friends, Eddie, but never more than that."

  He heaved himself into a more comfortable position, although he had tried them all and none of them was really comfortable now.

  "My darling Alice! I am not asking you for a commitment—"

  "But you are, Edward."

  "Nothing final!” he said desperately. “We're both too young to go that far. All I'm asking is that you consider me as an eligible suitor like any other young man. I just want you to think of me as—"

  "That was your final offer. You asked a lot more than that when you started!"

  Her fanning had grown more vigorous. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair. Ladies’ garments were even less suitable than gentlemen's for this unusually hot summer. In a way he was fortunate to be wearing only a cotton nightgown, but how could man woo maid when he was flat on his back with one leg in the air? “Then I'm sorry I was so precipitate. Put it down to transitory youthful impatience. You said you had no intention of making any final—"

  "Edward, stop!” Alice slapped the newspaper noisily on her knee. “Listen carefully. Our ages don't matter very much, I'll agree with you on that. That is not the problem. First, I will never marry a cousin! Our family is odd enough already without starting to inbreed. Secondly, I do not think of you as a cousin."

  "That's promising!"

  "I think of you as a brother. We grew up together. I love you very much, but not in the way you want. Girls do not marry their brothers! They do not want to marry their brothers. And thirdly, you are not the sort of man I should ever want to marry."

  He winced. “What's wrong with me?"

  She smiled sadly. “I'm looking for an elderly rich industrialist with no children and a very dickey heart. You're a starry-eyed romantic idealist student and strong as a horse."

  Edward sighed. “Then may I be your second husband and help you spend the loot?"

  Eventually they found their way to happier ground, talking about their childhood in Africa. The whites they had known had all died in the massacre, of course, but their native friends had survived. They speculated on who would now be married to whom. They talked of all sorts of other things, but not what he wanted to talk about, which was their future together. He discovered several times that he was lying there like a dead sheep, smiling witlessly at her, just happy to be in her presence. And at last Alice glanced at her watch and gave a little shriek and jumped to her feet.

  She clutched his hand. “I must run! Take care of yourself! Look out for Zulu spears."

  He felt a heavenly touch of lips on his cheek and smelled roses. Then she was gone.

  Later he looked through the books Ginger had sent and decided that they were definitely not the sort of thing he wanted to read in a hospital bed, and probably not ever. That came of being a romantic, starry-eyed idealist, he supposed. Most of them were suspiciously tatty, as if the old chap had read them many times, or they been passed around a lot. Then he chanced upon a flyleaf bearing an inscription in green ink:

  Noël, 1897

  Vous Inculper,

  Avant de savoir ce lui qui est arrivée,

  Gardez-vous Bien.

  Every book contained a similar inscription, each in a different ink and handwriting. It was a reasonable assumption that Constable Heyhoe knew no French. Arranging the volumes in alphabetical order by title and reading the fragments as a single message, Edward translated:

  "The back door was bolted on the inside; the door from the kitchen premises to the house was locked, but the key is missing. They cannot charge you until they discover where it has gone. Beware of admitting anything that may be used against you."

  Two men in a locked room, one dead, one injured—from which side had the door been locked? Yes, that was just mildly critical, wasn't it?

  Three cheers for the devious Welsh!

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  26

  ELEAL AWOKE SHIVERING, LYING ON HER PALLET IN darkness. She could not remember going to sleep. Cold and hunger had wakened her—distant sounds of evensong from the temple told her that the hour was not late. The troupe would be in Sussvale now, very likely still performing The Fall of Trastos for the kindly folk of Filoby. Curse Filoby and its cryptic testament!

  Her fingers were sore from plucking chickens. She had left the casement open—never a wise move in Narshland. She scrambled up stiffly and limped across to close it.

  Below her, lights showed in windows, here and there. In the crystal mountain air the skies were bright with a myriad of sparkling diamond stars, and two moons. Narshians bragged about their stars. Eltiana was a baleful red spot, high in the east, gloating over her prisoner, perhaps. Below her, just rising at the far end of the valley, Ysh's tiny half disk cast an eerie blue glow on the peaks of Narshwall. Of green Trumb there was no sign at all. Eleal leaned out and scanned the sky to make sure—and Kirb'l appeared right before her eyes!

  She had never actually seen him do that before. Always she had just realized that the night had become brighter or darker, that she had just gained or lost a shadow, and looked up to see that Kirb'l had come or gone, as the case might be. This time she had been watching! One minute there had been only stars at the crest of the sky, and the next moment there was Kirb'l's brilliant golden point, putting them to shame. She even thought she could make out a disk. Usually Kirb'l, like Eltiana, was merely a starlike point, although no star was ever so bright, or such a clear gold.

  All the moons went in and out of eclipse, but none so abruptly as he. Sometimes Kirb'l even went the wrong way, and a few minutes’ watching were enough to show her now that his light was indeed moving against the stars, sinking in the east. He was also heading southward, to avoid Eltiana and Ysh. Kirb'l, the moon that did not behave like the others—wandering north and south, moving the wrong way, sometimes bright, sometimes faint—Kirb'l was also the Joker, Kirb'l the god, avatar of Tion in Narsh. Was that a sign to her that she must not give up hope? Or was the Joker laughing at her plight? Kirb'l the frog had given her a sign! Good sign or bad?

  She decided to treat it as a good sign. She closed the casement, wrapped herself in her blanket, and knelt down to say some prayers. She prayed, of course, to Tion. She would not pray to the goddess of lust, nor to the god of death, not to the Maiden who withheld her justice. Chiol the Father had taken her coins and thrown a very cruel destiny upon her. But Tion was god of art and beauty and in Narsh he was Kirb'l and he had given her a sign.

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  27

  "YOUR FULL NAME, IF YOU PLEASE."

  Edward supplied his name and date of birth. He felt as he did when he faced an unfamiliar bowler. The opening balls would be simple and straightforward while the opponents summed each other up. Then the googlies would start.

  It was Tuesday afternoon, a full day since Alice had departed. The most exciting thing that had happened in those twenty-four hours was the bandage around his head being replaced with a sticking plaster, half of which was on scalp and sure to hurt like Billy-o when it came off.

  He was half-insane
from boredom, and a battle of wits with the law was a most welcome prospect. Being not guilty, he had nothing to fear if the game was played fair; if the deck was stacked, then devil take him if he could not outwit this country bumpkin copper. Anything he said might be used in evidence. He had never expected to hear the dread words of the official caution directed at himself.

  "You feel well enough to answer questions now, Mr. Exeter?"

  "Yes, sir. I'll do anything I can to help you catch the killer."

  "What do you recall of the events of Sunday last, August first?..."

  Leatherdale looked weary. The man was suffering from his weight and the heat. His face was more florid than ever, gleaming with perspiration, his neck bulged over his collar, and the points of his waxed mustache were drooping instead of standing up proudly. Edward had considered inviting him to remove his jacket and even his waistcoat and had then decided that fair play could be carried too far. Leatherdale for his part was not being at all sporting—he had set chair back almost against the wall, so Edward must keep his head turned hard over on the pillow to see him. The uniformed sergeant was on the other side of the bed, evidenced only by an occasional scratch from his pen.

  However absurd his apparel, Edward was much more comfortable than either of his visitors, except for the strain on his neck. His leg had stopped hurting much except when he moved it. Let the game begin!

  Next question: “You are familiar with the kitchen premises at Greyfriars Grange?"

  "Yes. I've stayed there before. Timothy and I always raided the larder after everyone else went to bed. It was a tradition we started when we were kids. We used to feel frightfully depraved, but I expect Mrs. Bodgley knew what we were up to and didn't care."

  "Would she have cared on Sunday?"

  "What?” Edward almost laughed. “Timothy could have treated me to the best Napoleon brandy and his parents wouldn't have minded. I expect we'd have felt a pair of real mugs if anyone had walked in on us sitting there by candlelight..."