by Peter King
"I saw the Plantation when I was given a tour, oh, ten years ago, when this whole idea was being put into practice. It had only just been planted then and I haven't had the chance to visit it this time."
"Oh, you will. She'll be anxious to have you make more use of it."
The voices came again. They were more strident now but I couldn't make out any words. I saw McCartney's eyes flicker in that direction. Was it some recurrent discipline problem? I wondered.
They grew yet louder and reached the point where McCartney could hardly ignore them any longer. "You'll have to excuse me," he said. "May be something that needs my attention." He was about to walk out when a flap in the section of the tent separating it from the rest opened.
A skinny young man with close-cropped hair came halfway through. "You'd better come, Mr. McCartney." His voice was tense. "Kenny's ill."
McCartney was curt. "Ill? What do you mean, ill?"
"He's in real agony, Mr. McCartney," the young man said nervously. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "You'd better come look at him."
He withdrew, holding the flap open, and McCartney hesitated, frowned, then followed him. I went along too. McCartney threw a glance at me over his shoulder and I expected him to tell me to stay there, but he said nothing.
We hurried through a tent section with portable racks full of costumes and shelves heaped with boots, hats, leggings. Through another flap, and we were in a section similar to the one we had just left. Parts of a suit of armor lay on the floor and I recognized it from the scarlet, black, and gold emblem on the breastplate as having been that worn by Sir Harry Mountmarchant in the jousting tournament.
That was secondary, though. Loud moans were coming from a cot where a young man was writhing in pain. His face was bathed in sweat and his hooked fingers clutched his abdomen. In a sudden paroxysm, his body jerked clean off the cot, then subsided. He wriggled and twisted, now trying to hold one knee which was obviously hurting him, then sagged as if utterly exhausted. His breathing was deep and harrowing. His eyes gazed unfocused.
"What's the matter with him?" McCartney demanded roughly.
"I don't know. He's been like this since he came off the field."
McCartney looked down at the figure on the cot. The young man was less active now, just twitching spasmodically, seemingly worn out. He still moaned, though, and was trying to mutter something.
McCartney was frowning. "What the devil was he doing on the field?" he wanted to know.
"He was Sir Harry."
McCartney's face was like thunder. "It was supposed to be Mr. Richard out there."
"I know," said the hapless young man who was caught in the crossfire. "But he wanted to go into the village and he got Kenny to replace him."
McCartney glared at him. For a moment, he appeared more concerned with a breach of rules than with Kenny's condition. "Have you called Dr. Emery?" he asked.
"He's on his way."
"I have some first-aid experience," I said. "Let me look at him."
I didn't wait for an answer. Kenny's pulse was slow and faint. His breathing was heavy, deep, and irregular. I pulled up one eyelid. The pupil was contracted. As I allowed the eyelid to close, I was aware of an odor in one of the exhalations. It was not a familiar odor but I had the feeling that it had some similarities ... but to what? I could not make any identification and, anyway, the important thing right now was to maintain his body temperature, which was low.
"Get a blanket," I ordered. "Keep him warm."
The young man hurried out and was back immediately with an army blanket, which he threw over the still-convulsing body. McCartney stared down at the face on the cot.
A voice called out, questioning. "It's Dr. Emery," said the young man eagerly. "I'll get him."
The doctor was gray-haired and gray-mustached, calm and brisk in manner. He took Kenny's pulse, looked at his eyes and his tongue, measured his blood pressure, then put a stethoscope on his chest.
His face gave away nothing but his voice was grave as he said, "I'll phone for an ambulance. He needs hospital attention." He was feeling inside his bag and pulled out a syringe and a vial just as McCartney asked, "Anything you can do for him, Doctor?"
The injection seemed to calm the breathing, and it eased the twitching, but all color had left the face that was still beaded in perspiration. The doctor hurried out.
"We don't have a doctor here but Dr. Emery is on call from the village at all times," McCartney explained. He seemed to want to talk. "I still don't understand why Kenny replaced Richard Harlington."
"He wanted to go into the village," I suggested. "Something urgent probably."
McCartney made an dismissive sound. "Went in to see that girl more likely."
"He has a girl in the village?"
"Yes. Sir Gerald has tried to break it up, even forbade Richard from seeing her, but it doesn't do any good. He slips away at every opportunity."
"Kenny is a regular substitute as Sir Harry?"
"We have three of them play Sir Harry-Richard, Kenny, and another stuntman, Frank Morgan."
"Isn't it a bit unusual to have a lord's son doing a dangerous job like that?" I asked bluntly.
"It really isn't dangerous. It's choreographed to the tiniest move. Anyway, Sir Gerald has tried to get Richard to stop, but he's a headstrong, reckless young man and won't listen."
He looked down at Kenny. "His breathing is slowing, isn't it?"
"Yes, but that might be the doctor's injection, slowing down his body systems."
"What's wrong with him, do you think?"
I hesitated before answering. It made him look at me abruptly. "What is it? Do you know?"
I still hesitated, then I said, "He has all the symptoms of having being poisoned."
CHAPTER THREE
Kenny died an hour after reaching the hospital. Don McCartney was in the breakfast room of the castle early and met me with the news. He was with two others at one end of a table. He left them and motioned me to join him at the other end.
"We don't have to tell you that we are discussing ways to keep as much of a lid on this as possible," he said to me.
I nodded. "I can understand that."
"The Hertfordshire police are sending some people," McCartney said. He looked haggard, probably from lack of sleep. He rubbed a hand over his face. "I didn't get much sleep last night," he said, confirming my guess. "The hospital called about one this morning to say Kenny had died an hour earlier. They said they had finally been obliged to terminate all efforts at resuscitation."
"Did they say anything about the cause of death?" I asked.
"No," McCartney said flatly. He glanced at the others, then turned back to me. "Look, we might as well get this into the open now. It'll have to come out when the police interrogate us anyway."
"What's that?" I had a pretty good idea what was coming.
"You said last night that Kenny had all the symptoms of having been poisoned."
The table was quiet. McCartney regarded me quietly and expectantly.
"I don't know how many people have been briefed on who I am and why I'm here-" I began and Don McCartney waved a hand.
"Nearly everybody at the castle knows. We don't like to have unidentified strangers wandering around."
"You have a lot of people working here," I continued. "I didn't know how far my job had been broadcast. So then you know that my business is food. I'm here to readjust the menus so as to make them more authentically medieval and more enjoyable. I get jobs like this and, once in a while, complications set in."
"Complications?" McCartney said sharply.
"Food has become a very big business. Look at the popularity of restaurants, see how many books, magazines, and television programs there are about food, and consider how much more important a part of our lives it has become. When something becomes that important, lots of money gets to be involved. Rewards are high, motives are strong."
"So you've run across cases of poisoning before?"
"One or two. I know what the most common symptoms of poisoning are and Kenny's seemed to fit in."
McCartney sat back in his seat. "That's a relief."
"Is it?" I asked. "Maybe it suggests something more sinister."
"You mean Kenny was deliberately poisoned?" McCartney was openly skeptical.
"Richard was supposed to be Sir Harry last night. At the last minute, he decided he had to go to the village and see his girlfriend. Kenny replaced him."
"So are you saying that someone wanted to poison Richard?" McCartney rephrased his question.
I shook my head. "I'm not saying anything till the police get here, and then I'm going to be careful."
"That's wise," McCartney said. "The first thing we need to know is what the official cause of death was. After we get that, it may be time for theorizing. I understand that a police inspector called Devlin is coming."
"Know him?"
He shook his head. "We get the occasional pickpocket and a rare break-in," he explained. "They give us extra security for some special events too, so we talk to various members of the Hertfordshire police, but we don't know this one." He stood up to go. "I'll let you get on with your breakfast," he said. "I suppose you might as well carry on as if everything was normal."
He left. I had a half grapefruit, wheat cereal with a banana, and coffee. I headed for the kitchen but I had only gone as far as the main dining room when a servant in uniform accosted me.
"Have you had breakfast, sir?" he asked and I said that I had.
"Sir Gerald sends his regards and asks if you could spare him a few moments."
Very civilized of him, I thought, and considerably more polite than a Sir Gerald of medieval days would have been in ordering me to appear before him.
"Certainly," I said. "When does he propose?"
"Would right now be convenient?"
"That would be very convenient," I replied. "Where do I find him?"
"If you'll just follow me, sir, I'll take you to him."
He conducted me up a long stone staircase with plain iron balusters, curved outward so as to accommodate ladies' crinolines. On the first landing hung a large framed photograph of Queen Victoria at the time of the first jubilee and a large oil of an ancestor, a duke. He was in military uniform, the painting in a beautiful rococo frame. On the next landing, we went along a carpeted corridor lined with early watercolors depicting the grounds of the castle in the eighteenth century. On one side, mullioned windows gave a view of huge bushes of laurel and groves of beech trees.
Sir Gerald was in his sitting room. It was a private room adjoining his bedroom and obviously served as a study. He sat at a wooden desk strewn with papers and books and illuminated by a large, elaborate bronze lamp. Lamps on the mahogany-paneled walls cast pools of orange light onto the Chinese carpet, too old to identify. Family photos, many black and white and some sepia, adorned the walls.
He was wearing a sky blue shirt and a pair of light gray flannel slacks. I had expected a dressing gown or at least a silk cravat. He greeted me cordially, we shook hands, and he invited me to sit.
"I had planned on talking to you this morning but I had not anticipated that it would be under these circumstances," he said. His voice was light but it had a (largely concealed) ring of the aristocracy. I had not met him when I had arrived yesterday nor during the meeting when my mission had been discussed a week earlier. I recalled talking to him a couple of times during my visits years earlier and he did not look any different. He looked somewhat like the late Duke of Windsor, I thought.
"Yes," I said. "I watched the joust yesterday evening and was one of the first into the tent to see what medical science proposed to do about the Black Knight's head. I almost jumped out my skin when Eddie popped out. I was talking to Don McCartney when he was told about Kenny being ill. I went with him to see Kenny and was there until the ambulance came."
"A sad business," said Sir Gerald. From what I knew of him, he cared about every man and woman who worked on the estate. The death of one of them would hit him hard. "Hopefully, we'll learn more of the circumstances when the police arrive. I understand we can expect them at any moment."
"So I believe," I said politely.
He leaned back. "I wanted to talk to you before they came," he said. "This is why-it's about my son, Richard. I suppose you've heard by now, he should have been in the joust." He gave a wan smile. "We're a tight community here. Word gets around."
I nodded.
"Kenny replaced him," he went on. "What this has to do with Kenny's death I don't know, but I'd like you to see what you can find out. Oh, I know you're here on the other business, but that's all right. You can do that too. It's a good cover."
He looked at me expectantly. "You will do it, won't you?"
"I'm not really a detective," I told him. It was an explanation that I seemed to have to make often. "I don't have a license, I'm not-"
"I know, I know. I've made some inquiries. You did a fine job for Desmond Lansdown. He recommends you very strongly."
"Ah, yes. He asked me to go to Italy and pick a chef for his new restaurant. Some difficulties arose ..."
"A man was murdered, I understand," Sir Gerald said.
"Well, yes," I murmured.
"Desmond and I belong to the same club."
Desmond is a blabbermouth, I was tempted to say but didn't. Instead, I said, "On that occasion in Italy, I was able to help the police apprehend the criminal." That sounded like the right terminology. "But we don't know that we have a crime or a criminal in this case," I continued.
"In that case, your task will be easy," Sir Gerald countered smoothly. "You will be able to earn double your fee with little additional effort."
"Double?"
"Yes. I am prepared to double your fee if you will undertake this task for me."
I was already contracted to do the menu thing for a fee that was agreed at a level higher than I had hoped. Now it was going to be doubled! Greedy, I warned myself, greedy. At the mention of money, you start to salivate. You should only do that at the sight of a plump roast pheasant, browned to perfection ...
Sir Gerald started to turn the screw. "I.have four children. You will meet them all if you haven't already. Two boys and two girls. Richard is the eldest. He's a headstrong boy and gets into trouble easily. Oh, never any serious problems, but there's a girl in the village he's taken a fancy to-she's the one he was with last night when he should have been in the arena." He paused and smiled wryly. "I say, `should have been in the arena.' I have tried to dissuade him time and time again from risking life and limb that way, but he finds it exhilarating. Perhaps at that age, I would have too. If I remember correctly, with me it was ballooning."
"I was getting the impression that the joust is not that dangerous," I said. "Steel in the right places, aluminum everywhere else. Spring-loaded lances, highly trained horses, thoroughly rehearsed-the risk seems to have been taken out of it."
"We've done as much as we can. In fact, we've done a lot. It's probably the most spectacular and realistic show of its kind in Europe. We've never had an accident." He stopped and smiled. "Oh, as you get older, you get more timid, I know. Slender as the risk is, I worry about Richard out there."
"In this case, he wasn't out there." I was determined not to be too compliant.
He waved a hand. "All I ask is that you stay around for a few days, stretch out your task with the food if you have to. The business with Richard probably has nothing to do with Kenny's death." His voice took on a harder tone. "I believe you told Don McCartney that you thought Kenny had been poisoned?"
Served me right for thinking Desmond Lansdown a blabbermouth. The pot has no right to criticize the color of the kettle. "He did appear to have many of the symptoms," I began to say.
"There you are then. Another perfectly valid reason to have you keeping an extra sharp eye. We don't want any fingers pointed at our cooking, do we?"
He had me, fair and square. I could even jus
tify myself accepting a doubling of my fee. I had to ask, though, and this was the best time to ask it.
"Sir Gerald, there isn't anything else I should know, is there? About Richard, about Kenny, about anyone else? About the circumstances of Kenny's death? Or anything else here at the castle?"
Was there just the slightest flicker of hesitation? Maybe it was just a natural caution in answering that would be typical of a man of breeding and background. In either case, I didn't have the chance to decide because there was a discreet tap at the door. Sir Gerald called out, the door opened, and the uniformed servant who had conducted me here poked his head inside.
"Pardon me, Sir Gerald. The inspector from the police is here."
CHAPTER FOUR
The north wing of Harlington Castle was, I learned, the least used portion of the edifice. All of the other parts were in active use at all times, but the north wing had not been fully restored and the rooms in it were either empty or used as storerooms. One large room, with full-length windows looking out onto extensive flower beds, had been quickly converted into a temporary operations office for the police.
Due to the large number of people they would want to interview, it was more practical to do it here than keep driving them to police headquarters in the city of Hertford. From the point of view of the people at the castle, this was preferable anyway as it minimized disruption to the routine.
The public announcement system normally operated separately in the various segments of the castle and its grounds, but now it was universal and calls were being put out for groups and for individuals to present themselves at the police operations room.
Sir Gerald's status gained him preferential treatment and he didn't have to suffer the indignity of being brought in for questioning along with the common herd. "You'd better stay," he said. "The police will want to know what you're doing here and it might go down better if I explain."
It was not that Sir Gerald appeared to be the kind who would seek better treatment, though. His manner was affable and fiendly, with no trace of condescension. I noticed that he spoke to servants in the same aimiable fashion.