“If I didn’t know better, the journalist in me would think you were hatching a plan using yourself as bait.”
“Do you know anything else more likely to draw him out than the thought of turning his defeat around and gaining control of Stonewycke? I am the perfect decoy.”
“But he’s already tried to kill you once!”
“Twice, actually,” corrected Logan. “A few years ago I learned that Channing was involved in my capture by Chase Morgan’s blokes during the depression.”
“You nearly died because of that!”
“But I didn’t. The firing squad failed, too. The Lord will protect me again.” A faint smile flickered across Logan’s face. “I only hope the saying Third time’s a charm has no basis in fact.”
“How can you joke about such a thing?”
“Sorry. I suppose once I felt the Lord saying I had to confront Channing, a bit of the old con man in me began to surface. As long as I keep my motives straight, I might as well enjoy it, wouldn’t you say?”
“One last big sting?”
“Not exactly how I might have phrased it . . . but that’s the idea.”
Hilary did not say anything for a few moments, clearly in thought.
“It’s not just you Channing is after,” she said at length.
“True enough. His wrath is leveled at all of us.”
“Then let’s take no chances,” Hilary went on. “We must make the hook absolutely irresistible.”
“What do you mean by that? Who is this we?”
“I am doing this thing with you.”
“You are most certainly not,” declared Logan.
“I read in Grandmother’s journal,” said Hilary, “that when Channing and von Graff had you before that firing squad, Channing was not looking at you or anticipating your death as much as he was watching Mother—gloating over her distress, relishing her anguish as she watched you die—as if through her he was really getting to Grandmother.”
“That’s right.”
“It will be a Stonewycke woman, then, that will be the true piece de resistance in whatever scenario you are cooking up. A woman from Stonewycke will be the one inducement he will not be able to resist.”
“I ought to feel offended,” smiled Logan. “Reverse chauvinism, you know! But I am proud. I do not know how I could ever have doubted that you are our daughter. But I still have strong reservations about letting you in on this one. This is no light undertaking. I cannot overemphasize the danger. Channing means deadly business.”
Hilary rose and walked toward Logan. “Please,” she purred, placing her arm around his shoulder. “I won’t be in any danger with you there to protect me.”
She was conning him now. And Logan knew it!
“I have just found you, Hilary. I do not want to risk losing you again.”
“And I have just found this family. I have wondered about my place in it. Now I believe it is this—fighting for those I love, and for the land, as so many generations of women have done before me. I am not a little girl. I am a grown woman able to take care of myself. Please . . . Father. I want to be with you!”
Logan hesitated, pondering her words.
“Father and daughter side by side, eh? One last fling together for the good guys!” He glanced up at Hilary, the old twinkle lighting up his eyes.
“That’s it!” she said, reflecting the same sparkle.
“I know that look! You got those eyes from me! Unless I miss my guess, what they’re saying is that I might do my best to stop you, but I’d never succeed. You’d follow me anyway!”
“You’re absolutely right!”
“My eyes and the Duncan feistiness!”
“Can’t help myself. It’s in my blood!”
Logan laughed. “Then who am I to refuse?”
“So what is your plan?” asked Hilary eagerly, sitting down again.
“Plan? Whoever said I had a plan? We’ll have to wait for the Lord to show us one.”
“I still don’t like the idea of you being bait,” said Hilary. “Channing might decide to have done with you right then and there.”
“That’s a possibility,” Logan replied. “But if I were still a betting man, I’d lay odds against it. That is not Channing’s way. He prefers a slow death so he can watch the suffering. Look at the elaborate ruse with Jo. She could have killed any of us at any time, but that would not have suited Channing. Besides, he won’t kill me as long as he thinks he can further extend his power over us. That’s exactly what we’ll use against him. We’ll make him think he can still gain the ultimate victory. But now we have to get down to thinking through the details. I have a feeling we might be able to use Ashley. At this point our only real connection with Channing is through his Oxford so-called ‘colleague.’ It’s a place to start.”
“I hope you’re right about Channing playing along,” said Hilary, trying to match Logan’s smile with a courageous bravado.
“He will. I know him. But before we do anything further, we must commit our way to the Lord. Let’s pray, not only for boldness, but that His will may be accomplished through our actions.”
61
The Hook
Gunther’s austere features were particularly grim as he strode purposefully through the portico. The heat wave of last week had given way to several days of rain, and now, though the temperature had dropped eight degrees, the air was muggy and humid. The General was seated at the far end of the open veranda in a high-backed wicker chair, a blanket laid over his legs in spite of the warm, sticky air, and a young boy was seated on the floor at his feet slowly waving a large leafy fan back and forth.
Still entertaining his delusions of grandeur, thought Gunther sourly, as if he were Caesar or—God forbid!—Hitler himself. Well, maybe he is a neo-führer, after all, he thought. He had set them all up after the war—with his money, his power, his worldwide connections, keeping them all safe and hidden from prying eyes.
But Gunther shook his head as he glanced at the newspaper he held in his hand. It could not last much longer. He would not last much longer. By all normal standards he should have died long ago.
“Mein Herr,” said Gunther as he approached.
Channing’s eyes opened. Gunther noted that they were still sharp, clear, and incisive no matter how debilitated his body appeared.
“What do you want?”
“You are looking particularly well today,” answered Gunther.
“Forget the banalities!” rejoined Channing. “I want news, not flattery. What do you hear from my daughter?”
“Nothing yet, mein Herr. But no news is good news, eh?”
“It better be!” snapped Channing.
“Speaking of news,” Gunther went on, “this came today.” He stretched out the newspaper toward Channing. “Look at the lower left-hand corner.”
Channing grabbed the paper in his gnarled hand, laid it in his lap while he dug out his eyeglasses from his pocket, then quickly scanned the columns until he finally focused on the specified place. The headline glared unpleasantly at him.
GUNSHOT VICTIM: POSSIBLE LINKS TO UNDERWORLD
Oxford, England—Ex-Oxford Professor, Mitchell Dodds, is in critical condition following a shooting Friday not far from his residence on Windham Street. Dodds remains comatose, but informed sources believe Dodds had dealings with a notorious underworld organization, headed by the enigmatic international criminal known only by the cryptic title “The General.” The General has eluded Interpol and other national and local police and investigative agencies for two decades, but Interpol’s London chief Rollins is confident that if Dodds survives, he will be able to lead police closer than ever before to the infamous crime lord. Queens Hospital sources, however, remain guarded about Dodd’s recovery.
When Channing finished the article, he lifted the paper in his hand and flung it away from him.
“Fools!” he screeched. “Those two bumbling idiots! I hope they rot in jail!”
“Only one has been
captured,” corrected Gunther. “Mallory got away. At least Galvez knows nothing.”
“Everyone knows something, you fool!” shouted Channing. “Why did you hire such imbeciles in the first place?”
“Galvez will not talk.”
“I want him taken care of anyway! Where is the fool of a Texan?”
“I don’t know. Probably in some cantina in Galveston.”
“At least he was smart enough not to show his miserable face around here.”
“I will see to it that he remains away,” said Gunther coldly.
“Yes. You know how I hate loose ends. Find him and dispose of him. I do not want Scotland Yard getting on his trail.”
“And the Professor?”
“The same, of course. But this time, no bungling! Take care of it personally!”
“They will no doubt have him under tight security.”
“That newspaper is almost a week old. He might be out of the hospital by now.”
“I doubt it. The paper said he was comatose and in critical condition. By now he may have died and saved us the trouble.”
“Or lived and talked!” Channing ran a hand through his white hair. But before he could utter any further imprecations, Gunther cut him off.
“I will attend to it immediately, mein Herr!” Gunther turned to go, but Channing’s failing voice stopped him.
“And, Gunther—” Channing croaked with menace, “do not fail!”
Gunther nodded, then continued out, while in his chair a fit of coughing overtook his aging chief. The exertion from the heated conversation had overtaxed his weakened system. The boy ran for the nurse, and within ten minutes Channing lay again in his bed, silently cursing all the fools around him, and himself for being at their mercy.
62
Final Gambit
Ashley Jameson had dreamed up many an eccentric scenario as Lady Hargreave. But this real-life drama was the most incredible of all.
No doubt it struck him as incredulous because he happened to be, for the moment, right in the middle of the plot. It was one thing to set characters of a book into motion doing crazy things. But when it was your own life on the line, all romantic notions suddenly fled, and all that was left was pure, undiluted fear.
Yes, here he was. Ashley Jameson, dull university professor, closet mystery writer . . . but certainly not a detective—here he was, sitting in a stranger’s flat—a dead stranger’s, no less!—waiting to be discovered by a ruthless killer. And here he would remain. For he had, in a moment of insanity he now thought, actually asked for this particular role in Logan’s scheme.
With the assistance of Interpol, Professor Dodds had been resurrected from the dead via a bogus newspaper article planted in The London Times. In the role of Dodds, Ashley hoped to throw a curve to whomever the General sent to finish the job someone else had botched. If it worked, Logan would find himself with an invitation to meet personally with his old nemesis, Jason Channing himself.
The entire scheme, with all its twists and subplots, was a long shot, as Logan would say. But Dodds was the only possible link to Channing’s location. Thus Ashley had stepped into Dodds’ now vacant shoes, spent a few days at the hospital, and then, after an astounding recovery, was released. For three days now he had been living in Dodds’ Windham Street flat. He only hoped that when Channing’s assassin came for him, he would be ready. The police had men staked out around the place at a safe enough distance so as not to scare off their prey. Ashley himself remained indoors as much as possible.
Ashley glanced at the clock. It was ten p.m., Dodds’ usual bedtime, or so Ashley had established over the last several days. He laid aside the book he had been reading and rose from the leather easy chair.
Nights were the worst. Although it had been arranged for a policewoman in a nurse’s uniform to come in daily while he caught a few hours’ sleep, he could not keep from becoming extremely drowsy at night. How much longer such an upside-down schedule could go he wasn’t sure.
He turned out the lights, then walked toward the window, careful not to make an easy target in front of it. Pulling back the shade a crack, he glanced outside. A light rain fell. The streets glistened with moisture, but were otherwise dark except for the occasional passing of an automobile with its bright headlamps.
I don’t know what I expect to see, Ashley mused to himself. Surely no professional killer was going to hang about under a streetlamp with his trenchcoat collar pulled up over his neck, waiting for the whole world to see him.
Sighing, Ashley turned back into the room and sat down again in the chair in the darkened room. The hands of the clock on the wall loudly ticked off the minutes. Logan warned him the waiting would be the worst part. He had been right.
Ashley tried to divert his mind into more pleasant channels. He recalled the last time he had seen Hilary several days ago. They both had been a bit too eager to point out that their parting was not a real goodbye, and that they would be parted for only a brief time. They each realized, of course, that they would have to stay clear of one another while he was “undercover,” though Hilary had smiled when he had used that oddly out-of-place term.
“I think you are rather enjoying all this, Ashley,” she had said.
“An exciting change of pace from the grind, you know.”
“You will be careful?” she said as she wove her arm around his while they walked under a full winter moon over the snow-covered university paths.
“Of that you may be certain!” He took a small package from his coat pocket, simply wrapped in brown paper. “Perhaps this will help the hours pass more quickly,” he said.
“Ashley, a present! You are a romantic, after all!”
“The well of the scholar runs deep, my dear.”
“I am only beginning to discover just how deep!” Hilary tore off the paper and found her hands clutching a clothbound book. She smiled as she read the title: “The Mystery of the Designing Debutante: A Lady Hargreave Mystery.”
“Hot off the presses, as you journalists say,” said Ashley. “Perhaps it may serve in some small measure to explain my interest in the fashion industry. And you are the first person in all of Britain to possess a copy.”
“Autographed, I hope?”
“Certainly not! Lady Hargreave never signs her books—a quirky sort of lady, you see. My publisher seems to think that the mystery surrounding the lady sells as many books as her stories themselves. I myself prefer to think it is pure creative and artistic excellence, but I see no reason to burst the old fellow’s bubble.”
“I shall simply devour it.”
“I hope it won’t entirely keep you from thinking of me.”
Hilary drew closer to him. “It could never do that, Ashley, don’t you know?”
Even sitting alone in the black apartment, Ashley could not restrain a pleased grin as he recalled her words. A year ago he would have thought that at such a seasoned age in his life, it would have been impossible to fit a woman into his staid and ordered bachelor routine. Yet now he found himself wondering if it would be possible to imagine his life without the daughter and niece of his two old friends, Logan and Ian.
The university tower clock striking the quarter hour pulled his thoughts back to the present.
Ten-fifteen. Still no intruders.
Ashley began to wonder if they had made it too easy for Channing’s man. Logan said there was always a fine line between a good piece of bait and a tip-off.
Ashley began to reflect on everything else Logan had told him before he set out on this madcap task—a crash course in the confidence game! Logan would have been so much better in this part, to be sure. Or an undercover detective, if things got too rough. But Channing, and possibly his men, knew Logan. And those kinds of men had an uncanny knack for smelling the law no matter what the disguise. Or so Ashley had argued when he had wanted the assignment, even though Galvez insisted he was the only one to have had face-to-face contact with Dodds.
Logan had pointed out one
other factor, too, probably trying to convince himself of the rationale of letting an untried scholar confront a hit man:
“After all, Ashley,” he had said, “you already know all the professorial lingo. Your very inexperience and authenticity will give us an edge against Channing, who will be on the alert for a setup.”
They both knew there were many risks. The plan could unravel at any number of points. But it was all they had. Logan was counting on its one most important feature. Channing would want Logan now more than ever, and in his blind obsession he was liable to overlook practicality. “His wanting me will be our foot in the door,” Logan said. “The dodge can only work when the mark desperately desires what you’re offering him. Remember, Channing doesn’t know what we know. That’s our ace.”
Suddenly a noise out of the night met Ashley’s ear.
He listened intently. Had it been his own overwrought imagination, on edge, waiting for something . . . anything to happen?
There it was again! A faint creak on the third step outside. He noticed it himself every time he entered the flat.
He swallowed hard. His whole body tensed as an inner sense told him this was it. He opened a drawer in the table next to the chair where he’d placed the automatic pistol Inspector Rollins had issued him. He’d done a good deal of hunting on his estate in Cornwall, and was a fair shot. But he’d never be able to use a weapon against a human being.
Logan had assured him he wouldn’t have to. They wouldn’t expect him as the scholarly type to be a killer. But they’d have no way of knowing for sure. His very unpredictability would throw them off guard. Ashley wrapped his fingers around the hard cold steel handle of the revolver, withdrew it, and pointed the weapon at the closed door.
He swallowed again. His throat was suddenly very dry. The only thought his brain could focus on was the possibility that both Lady Hargreave and Ashley Jameson had at last bitten off more than they could chew.
The Treasure of Stonewycke Page 42