“An‘ I also said there’s nothin’ cert’n in this life ‘cept birth an’
death an‘ taxes—” the third voice graduated from scorn to gentle chiding “—man, this is your ground an’ you know it better than any stranger poachin‘ in it, but I don’t want Miss Becky pipin’ her eye for you . . . If you ain’t got the guts for it, then just you say so.”
Growl. “No! I never said that—now you’m puttin‘ words in my dummy1
mouth what I never said!”
“A’right, then . . . Now, Mister—” Discipline restored, the Irishman came back to Benedikt “—let’s not keep our betters waiting.”
‘Betters’ could only mean Audley and Miss Becky, and they were infinitely preferable to a shot-gun at his back. But the light blinded him, and he was still close to the pit.
He tried to shield his eyes. “I cannot see where I am going.”
“Put the light on his feet,” snapped Kelly, and the beam instantly followed his order. In the absence of those ‘betters’ there was no question about who was in command in Duntisbury Chase.
Benedikt remembered Thomas Wiesehöfer. “Where are you taking me?”
“Just follow the red light, an‘ maybe you’ll find out.”
The red blob danced ahead like a firefly, and Benedikt stumbled after it. Captivity was a new and wholly disagreeable experience, but he must put this feeling of helpless anger out of his mind first, and at once—
A branch brushed his face, and he lifted his arm ahead of him to clear his way. Follow the red light—
Michael Kelly—
Michael Kelly was no simple Irish peasant—and no oafish unpromotable private soldier either, Colonel Butler was right: that handling of the recalcitrant sentry and the sure voice of command which went with it—more, those three voices which the man turned on and off at will—all of that marked him out as someone dummy1
more formidable in the reckoning.
The red light and the path at his feet twisted and turned; then he caught a glimpse of other lights, pale yellow, flicking on and off through the intervening trees on his left—now ahead—now on his left again: they must be approaching the manor house—
Colonel Butler had been right, but his rightness had hitherto been no more than logic and the shrewd assessment of experience and possibilities: young Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith might have the desire for vengeance, and the will to match it, but she surely lacked the stomach for this kind of work, and the certain knowledge to make the work worthwhile—
The lights were brighter now, diffusing through the trees into light itself—
And Audley . . . Dr David Audley ... he had the expertise, or the perverse trickiness, to devise such old-fashioned man-traps; but he had appeared on the scene too late to be their sole architect—
The trees ended abruptly. Simultaneously he was out of the wood and on to the well-kept lawn which ran down to the manor house, smooth springy turf underfoot, and no more trailing branches and bramble tendrils plucking at him in the dark.
And there was the manor itself, brightly lit—
He strove for a moment to hold his inner train of thought on its lines, but the impact of his first true vision of the building was too strong for him, wrenching him irresistibly off course against his will.
He knew already what it was like, with Colonel Butler’s dummy1
photographs and plans etched on his memory: the solid, rectangular three-storey mansion, its incongruous towers at each corner—half house and half castle. Yet now what had seemed to him unnatural and ugly—the towers were no higher than the house, and neither towers nor house were surmounted by roofs, as would have been the case with every such still-inhabited survival in his own country—it had its own reality, dramatically illuminated by lights on the terrace below and from the crenellated parapet above against the intense blackness which framed it: Duntisbury Manor, in Duntisbury Royal, in Duntisbury Chase in the county of Dorset, was where it had been for half a thousand years or more, grown out of its own ground— and woe betide the invader!
“Get on with you, then!” Kelly urged him from behind.
Benedikt stood firm, scrutinising the manor in his own time. “This is Duntisbury Manor—is it?” He let Thomas Wiesehöfer speak.
For, after all, poor Thomas had never seen the Manor, lacking the benefit of Colonel Butler’s researches and advice.
“And what else would it be—Buckingham Palace?” Kelly sniffed.
“Did ye not see it this afternoon—or ‘twould be yesterday afternoon now—when ye were out and about, snoopin’ round the village?”
“Please?” Benedikt decided that Thomas would be unfamiliar with
‘snooping’. In their insularity, the English took it for granted that most foreigners could understand their language and were unconcerned about their own ignorance. “What is ... ‘snoopin’?”
“Don’t turn round! Never mind—just get on—go on with you,”
ordered Kelly.
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There now! thought Benedikt, stepping forward again: Michael Kelly had recalled him to the consideration of what was important again—which was Michael Thomas Kelly himself.
There were three ingredients here, in Duntisbury Chase, which had come together like those in gunpowder to produce an explosive mixture—Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith and Dr David Audley and Gunner Kelly. And Colonel Butler had known about the first two of them, and had guessed about the third—and the Colonel had been right: there was a sulphurous smell about Gunner Kelly, he was sure of that now.
Gunner Kelly—
They were approaching the Manor. The flashlight at his feet picked out a gravel path which circled an immense ornamental pond on which the night sky was reflected like a black mirror.
Gunner Kelly—the other two were what they were—and the path, which had been crunching under his feet, ended with a flight of steps leading him downwards, on to a wide stone-flagged terrace on which the flashlight at his back lost itself in the great pool of light which filled the south frontage of the manor: the façade, which had seemed so much longer and lower from that first view, now towered above him, with the curve of the towers on each side embracing him—
Gunner Kelly, with his sharp words of command, and his chameleon voices, and the inner certainty of those voices matching the certainty of his searching fingertips— Gunner Kelly was something more than the faithful retainer the facts had made him, dummy1
the Old General’s loyal servant in life and the Old General’s granddaughter’s obedient instrument now.
He paused, as though irresolute now that he had lost the guiding light at his feet. There were French windows cut into the thickness of the ground floor, with other windows similarly pierced on each side of them betrayed by chinks of light through drawn curtains.
But the true entrance was there in the angle of the south-western tower, shadowed under a twisted canopy of branches and leaves.
Benedikt’s adrenalin pumped. For Benedikt Schneider knew now that, if Miss Becky had supplied the will to this mischief, and if David Audley had fashioned the means to it, the spark must have come from outside them—the spark and the certainty—
“Go on, then!” Kelly circled to his right, carefully out of reach.
“What are ye waitin‘ for?”
And Benedikt Schneider knew that Gunner Kelly was the source of that spark—that Colonel Butler had been right. But he was playing Thomas Wiesehöfer now, and poor Thomas would not know—
could not know—that the postern door of Duntisbury Manor was on his left, shrouded by the famous Duntisbury Magnolia, the seeds of which dated from the days when the Elector of Hanover had ruled American colonies as King of England.
“Please?” The more he suspected Kelly, the more determined he was to play Thomas as long as possible.
The postern door saved them both from more shadow-boxing by opening with the sharp metallic clunk of a heavy latch and an un-oiled whinny of iron hinges.
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“Michael?” The door rattled on a chain. “Have you got him?”
“Madam . . . safe as the Bank of England.” Where Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith’s voice had a more nervous ring to it than Benedikt remembered from their first meeting, Kelly’s was cheerfully deferential. “Out of Number Two in the spinney. And
‘tis that German gentleman from this afternoon— Herr Wiesehöfer . . . So Dr Audley was right, would you believe it?”
Damnation! Audley suspicious was one thing. But Audley right—
Audley certain— damnation!
The chain rattled again, and the door opened wide.
“Was he alone—” She stopped as she stared at him.
“That I can’t say, Madam. Until we know how he got in ... But there’s a full alert, an‘ everyone’s posted—”
“What have you done to him?” She cut Kelly off angrily.
“Done to him? We haven’t laid a finger on him, Madam,”
protested Kelly. “Not a finger!”
“Then why is there blood on his face?” Her voice shook.
“Blood on his face?” Kelly paused. “Oh, sure—so he fell into Number Two, didn’t he? An‘ that’s twelve foot if it’s an inch—”
She gestured to silence him. “Herr Wiesehöfer—are you all right?”
Benedikt put his hand to his face. Now ... if there was blood, it would have dried by now . . . but in this fierce light he would look worse than he felt, and that might be to his advantage.
“Madam—” began Kelly. “Madam—”
“Be quiet, Michael!” The strain in her voice confirmed his thought: dummy1
for all that she was the mistress of Duntisbury Chase she was still only twenty years old, and blood spilt in her service was something new to her.
“Madam!” said Kelly sharply, in his turn. “No—”
“Hush, Michael! Herr Wiesehöfer—”
“No, Madam—I will not hush, begging your pardon!” The sharp note vanished into the calmness of obstinacy. “We are standin‘ in the light, with all the dark hill above us—an’ I have this old itch between my shoulder-blades . . . So, I would most respectfully urge you to go inside—for my sake, if not for yours, if you please.”
“Oh, Michael—” As he had spoken she had switched from Benedikt to Kelly, and then from Kelly to the great darkness out of which they had come, and then back to Kelly again “—I’m sorry!
How stupid of me!” Finally she came back to Benedikt. “If you would kindly come into the house, Herr Wiesehöfer—at once.”
Neither Benedikt nor Herr Wiesehöfer required any further order: they felt the same itch in that instant, of the crossed wires in the night-sight, telescopically enlarging each of them out of the dark, shifting from one to the other, looking for a target, making their flesh crawl: that was a memory shared by both of them from the past!
Only at the last moment, when Miss Becky seemed to want him to enter first, did Herr Wiesehöfer assert himself, who had no reason for being frightened of such nightmares, more than he was already terrified: he must let ladies go first, or betray himself.
“Go on, Miss Becky—lead the way!” Kelly resolved the impasse dummy1
quickly. “And now you, Herr Wiesehöfer—get on with you!”
Benedikt followed her thankfully from unsafe light to safety: stone staircase, with worn steps, on his left—arched doorway, low door closed—cellar door?—ahead . . . open door and passage on his right, leading into the house.
He followed her down the passage. The house was cold now—cold because they were into the chill hours beyond midnight, and with no fires lit these thick walls had repelled the inadequate warmth of yesterday’s sunshine all too efficiently; but cold also because he was tired and frightened, Benedikt equally with Thomas.
“Hold on, there,” commanded Kelly from behind him. “The door by you—you can see the wash-basin, and there’s a hand-towel beside it... So you just make yourself presentable for the young lady, then—okay mein Herr?”
It wasn’t solicitude for him, thought Benedikt: the sight of blood had been questioned by Miss Becky, so that blood was better washed off, that was all.
He moved to close the door without thinking, but Kelly kicked out with his foot to hold it open. “Uh-uh! Easy now . . . Just the water and the towel, where I can see you.”
Benedikt studied himself in the small mirror above the wash-basin.
He had not really bled very much—the cut was small, and not very deep—but he had spread what there had been quite artistically, to good effect.
“Michael!”
“Coming, Madam!” But in replying to her Kelly didn’t take his eye dummy1
off his prisoner. A careful man, was Gunner Kelly. A careful man . . .
He wiped his face slowly, taking his time to get his first proper view of the Irishman, and was repaid with similar scrutiny.
“Sure, and that’s nothin‘ then, is it? I cut meself worse than that shavin’ many a morning.” Kelly shook his head. “Ye’ll not be takin‘ an honourable scar home to the Fatherland with that little scratch . . . if you should be so lucky, eh?”
The man was disappointingly nondescript. With that short unstylish haircut—almost cropped brush-like, iron-grey speckled with black—and the rounded blob of a nose in an expanse of leathery skin . . . skin not drawn tight enough to betray any memorable bone-structure beneath ... it was any face in a crowd. In fact, he had seen it before, not just in the inadequate enlargement Colonel Butler had supplied, but now—now that he saw it in that flesh—from his childhood recollections: it was any face in any crowd of British soldiers in the Rhine Army, substituting age and stone-sober suspicion for youth and beer-swilled truculence.
Kelly pointed. “That way, straight ahead . . . An‘ just so we understand each other, there’s no way out of this house that’s not locked or guarded—understand?”
Benedikt gave him Thomas Wiesehöfer’s baffled frown, but with the sinking feeling that poor Thomas was already less than a skin-deep covering, with David Audley waiting for him.
But, to his surprise, there was only Miss Becky in the room beyond the door—a long, low-ceilinged room, bisected with a single huge dummy1
beam which made him want to stoop, the girl standing alone with her back to a great empty fireplace.
“Herr Wiesehöfer—” She looked at him, then past him. “Michael?”
“Dr Audley not back then, Madam?” Kelly had experienced the same surprise, but without the need to conceal it.
“He should be here very soon.” She frowned uncertainly. “You think we should wait?”
“Not at all—‘tis no matter. We don’t need him to ask a simple question of the man.”
The expression on Miss Becky’s face suggested that Audley was exactly what she needed most. “I don’t know, Michael. David understands this better than we do.”
It was time for Thomas Wiesehöfer to speak: “Fräulein— Miss . . .
Miss Maxwell-Smith—” More in bafflement than anger first, with anger in reserve: that was the right note “—Fräulein—I also do not understand this! I do not—”
“No!” Kelly snapped into life. “No—that’s not goin‘ to be the way of it at all!”
Benedikt turned toward him. Anger, then—?
“With your permission, Madam—” Kelly was just too quick for him “—we should ask this . . . gentleman . . . how he came to be night-walkin‘ in the spinney when honest folk are in their beds—
for a start.”
Anger—outrage— forward, then!
“What? W-what?” He spluttered his sudden loss of control.
dummy1
“Aye—what, indeed!” Kelly lifted a chin which was blue-grey with stubble. “What the devil were ye trespassin‘ on the lady’s land for? Answer me that now?”
“Trespassing?” Benedikt drew himself up to his full height, remembering the beam too late, but just missing it. “I wish to speak to the Police!
I demand to speak to the Police!”
“The Police?” exclaimed Miss Becky.
“The Police, Fräulein—yes!” It was a rotten story he had ready-prepared for them—Kelly, for one, would never believe it. But that was all he had for this moment. “Yes.”
“Aaargh! Don’t you believe him! He tried that one on me—‘Is you the Poliss?’ he says. But I wasn’t havin‘ that one, by God!”
“But, Michael—”
“No, Madam! Leave this one to me.” Kelly’s voice softened, and he looked sidelong at Benedikt, half closing his eyes. “Am I the Poliss, then? No, I am not the Poliss—nor would I ever be. But I’ll tell you who I am, since ye ask.” He paused, reaching inside his jacket, to the waist-band. “I’m the fella with the gun, is who I am.”
Benedikt gaped at the pistol, as much for himself as for Thomas Wiesehöfer, without need for any acting ability. With what he knew they were planning perhaps it should not surprise him so much, it was only one more straw in the wind. Yet in showing it to him now, the Irishman had proved his point dramatically, with no going back: shot-guns were no less lethal—probably more so in unskilled hands—but even in peaceful law-abiding England many thousands of ordinary citizens possessed shot-guns legitimately, dummy1
especially in the country areas like this. But an automatic pistol was something altogether different.
“God in heaven!” he whispered hoarsely.
“Oh-aye, ‘tis one of yours, surely.” The Irishman’s voice was matter-of-fact, as though it was a screwdriver in his hand. He didn’t point the pistol, he held it diagonally across his chest, the fingers of his free hand playing imaginary stops on its frame. “A very fine weapon. But you’d be knowing that well enough, of course.”
It was an old Luger—an old long-barrelled Luger, of the sort which had served in half the world’s armies at one time or another . . . and this one looked so worn that it could have served with most of them, starting even before Kelly himself was born, never mind Benedikt.
He measured the distance between them. Four metres and a long settee, high-backed and heavy-looking: that was too far and too much for any ambitious ideas. And sixty years might have slowed the man, but not sufficiently: age did not wither well-maintained weapons— fine well-maintained weapons . . . not enough, anyway, for him to try his luck with an old soldier.
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