Ruler of the Night

by David Morrell

  He waited.

  “Doctor, truly, there’s no reason to make this unpleasant.”

  Mandt felt light-headed and suddenly realized that he’d stopped breathing. He gripped a crate and inhaled deeply, trying to steady his heart.

  Does he mean it? he wondered.

  “Doctor, I have a wagon waiting at the road,” the voice whispered. “Regrettably, the three-hour drive into London will be uncomfortable, but we don’t dare wait for the morning train. After we reach London, we’ll board the first train to Dover and be on a boat to France before the British government realizes that you’re gone. I emphasize that you’ll be treated with comfort and respect. You’re very important to us.”

  Mandt had no doubt that he was important to the Russians.

  But after I testified, would I in fact be allowed to live in reasonable comfort? he asked himself.

  And what about the British? How would they react to my betrayal? Would they allow me to live in reasonable comfort?

  Trembling, Mandt walked to the door, where the lantern glowed through the cracks between the boards.

  He slid the bolt free.

  “You made a wise decision,” the voice said.

  When Mandt opened the door, he saw a mustached, burly man with broad shoulders. As the man smiled and took a step into the attic, Mandt noticed that while his left hand gripped the lantern, his right hand held a revolver.

  The object that Mandt had taken from the food basket was a knife. The man’s overcoat was unbuttoned. Propelled by panic and desperation, Mandt thrust the knife into the man’s stomach.

  The man bent forward as though he’d been punched. He gasped and tried to straighten. Mandt tugged upward on the knife, feeling the warmth of blood on his hand.

  The revolver dropped, thumping loudly. With his now-free right hand, the Russian gripped his stomach, trying to stop the blood. As he fell backward onto the stairs, his other hand lost its grip on the lantern.

  The lantern shattered on a step and rolled, its burning wick exposed to the wood.

  “You feel on fire,” Emily said in alarm as she removed her hand from De Quincey’s forehead. “I need to unwrap you.”

  “Unroll me would be more accurate,” he murmured.

  She leaned over the metal railing on the side of the table. Before the attendants left, they’d placed drenched blankets on top of the bundle that enclosed him. She hurled these away and felt for the edge of the first of the many soaked sheets in which he’d been wrapped.

  But she couldn’t find the edge.

  “I need to turn you, Father.” Her voice echoed sharply against the room’s bright tiles.

  With effort, she rolled him onto his right side and then his stomach, where she finally found the edge of the first soaked sheet.

  She pulled.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be gentle, Father.”

  “Quite all right,” he said with his face on the table. “The bumps distract me from the rodents gnawing at my stomach.”

  “Perhaps I can distract you more,” Emily said, tugging harder. “What are we to make of Harold’s announcement that he hired Daniel Harcourt? Was he telling the truth or, in the heat of the argument, was he merely trying to spite Carolyn?”

  “Emily, at the moment, please don’t say heat.”

  Sweat dripped from his face as she yanked the wet sheet, turning him onto his other side and then his back.

  “It was in Harold’s hateful nature to want to ruin his stepmother,” De Quincey said, exhaling from the impact of being rolled. “I suspect that he did hire the attorney. As Harold told us, he wanted to prove that Stella was unfaithful to his father. But would the fear of being exposed as an adulteress have been great enough for Stella, or even Carolyn, a fiercely protective mother, to arrange for Harcourt to be murdered?”

  Emily kept pulling the soaked sheet, once more thumping her father onto his right side and then his stomach.

  “I don’t believe it,” De Quincey said, dripping onto the table. “Harcourt’s revelations would have caused Stella to be exiled from Lord Cavendale’s estate, true.” He winced as Emily tugged him onto his back. “But Carolyn’s so wealthy that she could have supported her daughter and grandson in far greater luxury than they would ever have enjoyed in that terrible house.” He groaned. “The only penalty would have been that Stella could no longer call herself Lady Cavendale, but is the fear of losing a title worth the risk of being hanged? No, I don’t believe it.”

  “It must be difficult speaking this way about a long-lost friend who’s so important to you, Father.”

  “The only person who truly matters to me is you,” De Quincey told her, grimacing as she tugged the sheet and rolled him onto his left side.

  “I feel the same way about you, Father.”

  “As you proved many times. Thank you for your sacrifice. No one could have a more loving daughter. I know your fondness for Sergeant Becker and Inspector Ryan. Under other circumstances, you might have felt free to choose one of them to be your—”

  “There aren’t any other circumstances, Father,” Emily told him abruptly, avoiding the topic. “There is only here and now and you and I. That is what we must deal with.”

  “Yes, here and now.”

  “I reached the end!” Emily said in triumph. She threw the dripping sheet away and tried to find the edge of the next one. “Do you feel less hot, Father?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Father?”

  “Is it close to dawn?” he asked. “I’m certain that I’d feel stronger if I had my medicine.”

  “Does your heart feel that it’s beating slower?”

  “Faster, I’m sorry to say.”

  Emily tugged furiously at the second of the many drenched sheets that encircled her father.

  In a panic, Mandt stared at the shattered lantern on the steps below where the Russian lay. The lantern was on its side. Fuel leaked out of the slot from which the wick protruded. The flame spread farther across the wood.

  Mandt remembered a sheet that covered a crate behind him. He grabbed it and prepared to charge down the stairs to swat out the flame.

  But the Russian was sprawled on the narrow stairs, blocking the way, and the Russian was still alive, moaning and clutching his stomach, from which the knife’s handle protruded. Mandt feared that if he tried to step over him, the Russian would grab his legs, topple him, and use the last of his strength to pull out the knife and stab him.

  The flames rose from the step, touching a wall.

  Mandt dropped the sheet, descended two steps, bent down, and gripped the Russian’s ankles. Straining, he pulled, dragging the Russian up toward the attic.

  The Russian’s head bumped on one step and then another. With each jolt, he groaned.

  Mandt pulled more fiercely when he saw the wall catch fire. He dragged the Russian all the way into the attic and left him bleeding on the floor.

  As he picked up the sheet, Mandt remembered the revolver. Lest the Russian crawl to it, Mandt grabbed it, crammed it under the waistband of his trousers, and hooked the handle over one of his suspenders.

  He hurried down toward the swelling brightness of the burning stairwell.

  All at once, he noticed that the sound of his panicked movements seemed louder. The drumming of the rain had stopped.

  He heard another sound, a hiss. It came from the overturned lantern where it lay amid the flames. The hiss became high-pitched, like the whistle on a kettle.

  Mandt suddenly understood what was about to happen. Turning in a frenzy, he raced up the steps and threw himself onto the floor.

  An instant later, the fuel reservoir in the lantern—its contents expanding because of the fire’s heat—achieved a pressure that the metal couldn’t contain.

  The explosion disintegrated the lantern, spewing fuel and chunks of metal throughout the stairwell. The ceiling, the walls, the steps—everything burst into flames.

  “Lady Cavendale and Mrs. Richmond.” Dr. Wainwright stood
at the entrance to the consultation room. Before him, Stella and Carolyn sat on cots, holding blankets around their shoulders. Stella cradled her infant son in her arms. “Is there any way I can be of assistance?”

  He said their formal names loudly enough that anyone in the corridor could hear, although now that the commotion had passed, most servants and guests had gone back to bed.

  Satisfied that he wasn’t observed, he took a step into the room.

  “Why are police detectives here?” Carolyn asked.

  “They don’t believe that the inquiries about Daniel Harcourt were thorough. They want to assure themselves that no one here at the clinic had any dealings with him,” Wainwright answered.

  “Harcourt,” Carolyn said, looking down at the floor. “I had no idea he hated me so much. I thought he was merely showing contempt for a woman in business, but in fact, it was I personally he felt contempt for.” She finally looked up. “Bad luck that the police detectives decided to come here at this particular time. Did Dr. Mandt arrive?”

  “He’s in the attic. He was supposed to leave for the United States tomorrow night, but with all the trouble on the railways, he might be noticed among the few travelers. He can’t be moved for a while.”

  “My plan was to bring my friend Thomas here today,” Carolyn said. “The famous Opium-Eater would have been so great a distraction that no one would have suspected Mandt was here. Unfortunately, our entrance created a greater distraction than I anticipated.”

  “The police detectives are certainly distracted, one of them in particular,” Wainwright noted. “Lord knows what that Irish inspector has done to Harold. They haven’t returned yet. Stella, in all the chaos, I didn’t have a chance to express my condolences. I’m extremely sorry about the loss of your husband.”

  “Thank you.” Stella peered mournfully down at the baby in her arms. Her green eyes brimmed with tears. “I did my best to restore Robert’s health after his riding accident, or perhaps I should say his supposed accident. The more I think about the way Harold acted after he galloped back to the house, shouting that something horrible had happened, the more I believe it wasn’t an accident at all. I think Harold was terrified that his father would recover sufficiently to tell us what really happened.”

  “The law will deal with him,” Dr. Wainwright assured her, “or perhaps that inspector will punish him even sooner than a judge. The Opium-Eater’s daughter is obviously special to Ryan. I’ve seldom seen anyone more enraged.”

  “I envy her,” Carolyn said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “To be loved so intensely,” Carolyn said. She looked older, creases showing around her eyes. The gray streaks in her hair seemed more pronounced.

  The heat from the fire pushed Mandt back into the attic. He managed to avoid stumbling over the Russian, who blinked in shock, his chest rising and falling with effort.

  Desperate, Mandt pivoted toward the attic’s front window and quickly dismissed it as a means of escape. He couldn’t possibly squirm through the small opening, and even if he did, he would never survive the long fall.

  He swung back toward the growing roar of the flames in the stairway. He drew a breath, raised his arms to protect his face, and rushed downward through the blaze. Heat singed his hair and burned the skin on the backs of his hands. His rapid footsteps thundering, he charged through the flames, lost his balance, and fell. With a groan, he landed painfully on the steps, sliding rather than rolling because the walls of the stairway were so close together.

  He jolted to a stop on a landing and slapped the fire on his clothes, burning his palms, smothering the flames on his trousers and coat.

  A noise startled him, coming not from the fire but from a door on the landing where he lay. It opened. A portly, bearded man in a dressing gown held a candle and peered from an otherwise dark corridor. In shock, the man gaped at the inferno on the stairs and then at Mandt lying sprawled on the landing.

  The man shouted something, then turned and ran along the corridor, pounding on doors as he passed them. Mandt’s English was so limited that he couldn’t determine precisely what the man yelled, but in all likelihood, it was “Fire! Help! Run!”

  Mandt ignored his pains and struggled to stand. His right leg almost buckled. The barrel of the revolver wedged under the waist of his pants had gouged his thigh, but he didn’t have time to assess the damage. With the heat of the flames stretching toward him, he raced farther down the steps. He turned to charge down the next section, but away from the fire, darkness suddenly enveloped him. He placed a scorched palm against a wall so he could keep his balance as he descended cautiously.

  Above and behind him, he heard more shouting. The fire’s roar increased. The air in the murky stairwell became cooler. He reached yet another landing, turned, and kept descending.

  Finally, he turned in the darkness and found there weren’t any more steps. All he felt was a door. When he opened it, a few wall lamps revealed a granite corridor. He smelled water.

  I’m in the basement! he realized.

  He heard voices coming from a room—an elderly man and a young woman speaking urgently.

  He hurriedly retreated and rushed up the dark steps to the next landing. There, he used his throbbing hands to paw along a wall. He found a door that he presumed would lead outside.

  He opened it. The rain had stopped. A moon emerged from clouds. The night smelled sweet.

  A man stepped away from a wall and asked in Russian, “Vladimir, did you find him?”

  Mandt stumbled back.

  A second man moved away from a wall.

  “It’s him! It’s Mandt!”

  Mandt pulled the revolver from his waistband as he continued to stumble away. He had no experience with firearms, but he’d seen others use them and knew enough to pull back the hammer.

  As the Russian grabbed for him, Mandt pulled the trigger. The flash was blinding. The smoke added to the darkness of the night. The noise slapped his ears, making them ring. Not knowing if he’d hit the man, he lurched back all the way through the opening, slammed the door, and hoped there was a bolt to lock it.

  He couldn’t find one. Behind him was another door. He opened it to make it appear that he’d fled in that direction. Then, as fast as the darkness allowed, he raced up the stairs, opened the door on the next landing, and ran along a corridor. People wearing nightclothes rushed from rooms, holding candles that trembled.

  “What a pity, Harold,” Ryan said as they made their way along the muddy road, guided by a lantern that Becker held. “The rain stopped. I’d hoped that the hail would return. I wanted you to enjoy the same weather you forced my friends to experience.”

  “You can’t treat a peer in this fashion,” Harold objected, struggling to carry Emily’s travel bag and her father’s. “When I speak to your superiors, you’ll learn the penalty for insolence.”

  “I look forward to your conversation with my superiors,” Ryan told him. “Are those bags too heavy for you, Harold?”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “I don’t remember if a peer has ever been hanged before. Detective Sergeant Becker, do you recall such a thing ever happening?”

  “Wasn’t there an earl a hundred years ago?” Becker replied.

  “Yes, that’s right! So peers can in fact be hanged. There ought to be a large crowd. At least twenty thousand people,” Ryan said with great enthusiasm. “The street vendors will earn considerable money selling rotten vegetables for the crowd to throw at you, Harold.”

  “Stop talking like that! I didn’t kill my father!”

  “Of course not. You merely went out of your way to make it seem like you did. In which case, you ought to be hanged for stupidity.”

  “You can’t talk to a lord in this fashion! I’ll have you dismissed from the police force!”

  Becker suddenly interrupted. “Sean, what time is it?”

  “Time? It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I mean precisely,” Becker
persisted.

  Confused, Ryan removed the Benson chronometer from a trouser pocket, opened it, and held it close to the lantern that Becker held.

  “Since when does a police detective carry a gold watch?” Harold demanded.

  “It’s evidence that I’m protecting.” Ryan studied the two dials on the lustrous chronometer. “The time is exactly seventeen minutes and fifteen seconds after three o’clock,” he told Becker.

  “Too early for dawn. Anyway, we’re walking toward the west, not the east.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ryan asked.

  “Look ahead. Next to the silhouette of the hill. At a later hour, if we were walking east, it could be the glow from the sun coming up.”

  “A glow doesn’t ripple,” Ryan said in a rush.

  Becker broke into a run. “The clinic’s on fire!”

  ELEVEN

  INTO THE DEPTHS

  Someone frantically rang a fire bell. Remembering to conceal the revolver in his trousers, Mandt joined the chaos of people surging from their rooms. A few struggled to put on dressing gowns while most wore only nightclothes. Their voices were a babble, but he sensed that they were shouting something to the effect of “Help! Fire! Run!”

  The swarm reached a large central staircase, where dozens and dozens of people charged down from the upper levels. They bumped against each other, merging into a larger mass, hurrying down toward where other panicked people gathered talking loudly in an entrance hall.

  Mandt veered into the center of the frenzy, doubting that anyone who chased him would show himself to so many witnesses, hoping that no one would notice him among so many frantic people.

  “Be calm!” Dr. Wainwright urged. He pulled a chair from a table, climbed onto it, and shouted to the growing crowd in the entrance hall, “Everything’s under control! There’s no reason to panic!”