To the Rescue

by Jean Barrett

  She didn’t want to think about Leo. She thought instead about Sybil as she passed the closed door to the infirmary on her route to the stairs. Brother Luke had earlier told her on their way to the library that Mrs. Harding was still unconscious and that her husband had spent the night in the chapel praying for her recovery. Jennifer hoped his prayers would be answered.

  She met no one on the stairs or in the upper corridor, but the brothers had been here before her. A series of plastic buckets had been placed at intervals along the passage. Water was already dripping into them from leaks in the ceiling, evidence of just how badly the roofs needed those repairs.

  Jennifer was relieved not to find Leo waiting for her when she reached their rooms, and at the same time she was annoyed by her perverse letdown. She had no idea where he could have gone or what he was up to. All she knew was that she felt alone and miserable without him, and that, too, she found irritating.

  Putting him out of her mind with a determined effort, she went down to the bailey where the brothers were busy scraping and sweeping. She was shocked by how high the temperature had climbed in just a matter of a few hours. The air felt almost balmy.

  There were still drifts through which the brothers were cutting paths, but where the snow had been shallow, the stone flags were already exposed. However, it was hard to tell in the enclosure just how extensive the sudden thaw was. Jennifer needed to know.

  Finding her way across the bailey, she went out through the portal of the gatehouse to the open road beyond. Standing there in the gentle breeze, she surveyed the terrain on both sides. The snow was melting so rapidly that in places there were open patches where the bare ground steamed under the March sun.

  Jennifer had a dismal feeling that her time may have run out. They could already be clearing the roads across the moors, making it possible for the linemen to restore the power and telephones. The castle would soon no longer be isolated, and if Guy’s charwoman back in London had regained consciousness and told her story…

  The police. They could even now be looking for her, perhaps had already traced her to Warley. Within a matter of hours, they would be able to reach the monastery. There was nothing to prevent them from arresting her.

  Jennifer had never known it was possible to experience such a sense of sick desperation. It was in this state of despair that she turned around and started slowly back to the gatehouse.

  Her thoughts diverted by the cry of a rook overhead, she lifted her gaze in search of the bird. That was when her attention was captured by the sight of a badge carved in the stone above the portal. Though worn by centuries of wind and rain, it was still possible to detect its characters. Jennifer assumed the coat of arms belonged to the knight who had built and originally owned Warley Castle.

  She could make out a checkered shield supported by a miniver on one side and a ram on the other. The shield, bearing a helmet, was crowned by a pair of crossed swords.

  There was something familiar about the emblem. She had seen it before, hadn’t she? Where and when? And then suddenly she remembered. Or was fairly certain that she did. It was the same device embossed in the leather on the cover of Sybil Harding’s vanity case. A family crest.

  If she was right, it meant Sybil could be a Warley descen dant. It would explain her strange claim to Leo and Jennifer that, by rights, “it” belonged to her. Sybil had to have been referring to the Warley Madonna.

  Jennifer had no idea how her discovery could possibly help her to save herself from being charged with murder. She only knew she was excited by the possibility this was somehow the connection she needed. The thing she and Leo had been looking for.

  But before she took it any further, she had to be sure that the crest on Sybil’s vanity case did, in fact, match the coat of arms above the portal. She had to have another look at that case.

  LEO’S EFFORT to get the truth out of Harry Ireland, the Brashers and the young Patrick turned out to be much harder than he’d figured. All four of them were stubbornly determined to hang on to their secrets.

  Hoping they would be less resistant with their appetites satisfied, he waited until they finished breakfast to confront them. Ireland was on his feet and ready to leave the dining parlor when Leo stopped him.

  “You don’t want to go, Harry.”

  The salesman was amused. “I don’t, old man?”

  “No, you don’t.” Leo looked around the table. “And I think the rest of you will want to stick around with him.”

  “And just why is that?” Fiona demanded.

  “Because I need to question all of you.”

  Her husband wore a mutinous expression. “We’ve answered enough questions.”

  Fiona pushed back from the table. “Alfred is right. You have no authority to interrogate us.”

  “Oh, yeah, I do. Or are you forgetting that Father Stephen has appointed me to investigate all the nasty little stuff that’s been going on here in the castle? Like, for instance, Brother Anthony’s murder.”

  Alfred Brasher threw down his napkin and got to his feet. “I, for one, have no intention of telling this man anything. I say we all wait for the police to answer any further questions.”

  He was ready to lead the way out of the room. The others, all of them on their feet now, were prepared to follow him. But they hesitated, looking uncertain when Leo said, “Sure, you can all wait. Except it probably will take some time yet before the cops are able to get here. And until they do…”

  “What?” Patrick prompted him.

  “I’m still in charge. Which means, wherever you scatter to after you leave here, I intend to hunt you down. One by one, if necessary. I’ll hound you until you tell me what I want to know. Or you can make it easy on yourselves and talk to me here and now.”

  “Are you going to let him intimidate you? You’re fools, if you do.” Alfred headed for the door.

  Realizing it was time for him to use the ammunition he’d been saving, Leo called after him, “And if anyone refuses to talk to me…well, I’m just apt to assume he’s the one who’s got something really vital to hide. Say, something connected with murder. Why hold out otherwise? Huh?”

  Muttering under his breath, Brasher turned and came back to the table.

  “That’s better,” Leo said. “Look, don’t worry about it. Just make yourselves comfortable in here. I’ll see each one of you separately, or the Brashers together if they prefer, outside on the stair landing. That way, whatever you have to share with me that’s confidential will stay confidential.”

  It was a long and grueling session, taking more time than Leo had anticipated to sort out alibis and possible motives. But, one by one, he got the explanations for everything he and Jennifer had considered suspicious.

  He started with Harry Ireland. The salesman, nervous about being confronted with the subject of the compromising letters in his room, suddenly lost his phony speech and reverted to something that Leo thought might be a Midlands dialect.

  “Mum always said I’d come to no good if I didn’t watch myself with the women. Like ’em too much, y’see. Well, you know how it is out on the road. A bloke gets lonely, and Betty was that eager for company. A real luv, she is.”

  “Also real married,” Leo pointed out. “And wanting to leave her husband to run off with you. Providing, if I remember her letter correctly, one of you could get your hands on enough money. Apparently, what a salesman earns isn’t enough for Betty.”

  “I’ll not say I wasn’t tempted. Still am. Only, short of winning the pools, it’s daft to think there’s a way. Anything criminal? Never!”

  Leo believed him. Harry was too emphatic about it. And too scared to even consider theft, much less murder.

  The Brashers, whom he questioned next, admitted it was no accident they were here at Warley. They had followed Patrick to the monastery.

  “The photograph of the cricket team you found in our luggage,” Fiona said, “the one with Patrick in it. It was taken in their last year at school. I say t
heir, because the young man standing next to him was our son, Gordon. He and Patrick had been close friends since boyhood.”

  “Was?”

  “Gordon died a few months back,” Alfred said.

  He went on to tell Leo that their son and Patrick had been on a climbing holiday in Scotland. The two of them had scaled far more difficult peaks in the Alps, but something had gone horribly wrong this time. An accident involving a rope. Gordon had strangled to death before Patrick could free him.

  The Brashers didn’t blame Patrick. An investigation had exonerated him. All they wanted was for Patrick to share with them their son’s last hours on that mountain, his final words. But Patrick refused to talk about it.

  And that, Leo thought, explained the quarrel he and Jennifer had overheard the other morning here on the landing. Tragic circumstances but otherwise innocent.

  Patrick, whom he saw last, corroborated what the Brashers had given him.

  “They want me to tell them something about Gordon that will comfort them,” Patrick said, his voice thick, “but I can’t, because there isn’t anything that will help. There just isn’t.”

  Guilt, Leo thought. The kid is suffering guilt because he was unable to save his friend. Which could be the reason why Patrick wanted to join a monastery. If so, it was a bad reason. But that was something for Father Stephen to handle.

  “There’s still the matter of that wicked-looking knife in your luggage,” Leo pressed him.

  “Don’t you understand? I should have had a knife with me to cut Gordon loose from that rope, and I didn’t. I’d left it behind in our hotel. A knife is something a climber should never be without.”

  And now, Leo decided, Patrick couldn’t bear to go anywhere without a sharp knife accompanying him, even if it was in his luggage. Irrational maybe but understandable.

  “That’s why I kept my door locked,” Patrick explained. “I didn’t want anyone finding the knife and thinking the wrong thing about it. It was bad enough having Geoffrey resent me because he didn’t feel I was serious enough about becoming a monk.”

  Everything the four of them had confessed was understandable. And none of it had anything to do with the murders or the theft of the Madonna. Unless he was overlooking something, and Leo didn’t think he was.

  He had eliminated everyone but Geoffrey and Roger Harding. Neither of them was a strong possibility, especially the novice, but he meant to question them anyway. He’d sent all of his four suspects back into the dining parlor after he’d finished with them. They were waiting to be released when he joined them.

  To his surprise, two of the brothers arrived just behind him. They began to set the sideboard and the table for lunch. The time had gotten away from him. He was a little anxious about that, realizing he should have checked on Jennifer long ago.

  “Either of you know where I can find Roger and Geoffrey?” he asked the two monks.

  One of them said Geoffrey was in the workshops. The other thought Roger was still in the chapel. Thanking the Brashers, Harry Ireland and Patrick for their cooperation, Leo left the dining parlor and made his rapid way to the ground floor.

  He spared a quick look into the chapel on his way to the library. Brother Michael was there polishing the altar rail, but there was no sign of Roger. The library, when he moved on to it, was dim and deserted.

  Where was Jennifer? he wondered. And why, no matter how emphatically she had refused to let him accompany her, had he been such an idiot to let her go off virtually on her own?

  IT WAS ALMOST NOON when Jennifer, still wearing her coat and boots, stole along the silent corridor of the wing where the other guests were quartered. They should be gathered for lunch by now down in the dining parlor. Roger Harding would either be with them or still in the chapel. She was counting on that, though there was always the chance he had remained in his room and would challenge her presence here.

  She was willing to risk that, even though she knew she probably shouldn’t be doing this on her own. That she ought to find Leo and convince him to accompany her. But that would take time, and she didn’t want to spend the precious minutes. She had lost too many of them as it was.

  It would be all right, she promised herself. She’d just have a quick look and be out of here.

  So far she had encountered no one. Nor, when she reached the first of the four rooms and paused to listen, did she hear anything. The stillness indicated the wing was deserted.

  Continuing on her way past the closed doors of the rooms that belonged to Harry Ireland and the Brashers, she came to the third door. This was the Hardings’ room, she remembered.

  Wanting to make certain no one was inside, she rapped on the door. If the unlikely happened and Roger answered her knock, she was prepared with an excuse. She’d simply ask him if he had any news about his wife, express her sympathy and make a fast retreat.

  But there was no response to her knock. She tried the door. It was unlocked, as it had been before. Opening it cautiously, she looked inside. Empty.

  Quelling her nerves, she slipped into the room, closing the door behind her before she hurried to the wardrobe. This was where she had found the vanity case on that first visit. But there was no sign of it now. The tall cupboard contained nothing but clothes.

  Among the garments was the monk’s robe she had noticed earlier, hanging from the same peg in a dim corner, one end of the cord that fastened around its waist dangling to the floor of the wardrobe. Why the sight of the robe should bother her now when she had barely noticed it earlier she couldn’t imagine. But it did somehow.

  Hastily closing the doors on it, she looked around for some evidence of the vanity case. There were toilet articles strewn across the surface of a small table, a clear indication that the contents of the case had been emptied. But what had happened to the case itself?

  It was then that she detected an odor in the room. The smell of something that had been recently burned in the fireplace. Not peat either. This was different.

  She went to the fireplace and crouched down on the hearth. There were smoldering embers in the grate, the smoking, blackened remains of—

  Yes, the vanity case, which must have been hacked into pieces and the chunks fed to the flames. She could see a charred piece of its leather down in the still glowing coals.

  If the door to the corridor made any sound opening and closing, she never heard it. Maybe because she was too focused on the destruction of the vanity case. Not until she was addressed in a quiet voice behind her did she realize she was no longer alone in the room, and then it was too late.

  “Snooping again, are we?”

  Jennifer whirled around on the hearth to see Roger Harding standing against the door, his tongue against his teeth making a sound of mocking disapproval.

  “I don’t have to ask what you were looking for this time,” he said. “I can see you already found it. Or what’s left of it. Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before you—what is it you Americans say?—began to figure things out. But your friend, Mr. McKenzie, hasn’t arrived at that point yet, has he? No, or you wouldn’t be here on your own. I still have time then.”

  Jennifer came slowly to her feet, afraid to make any sudden move. This was an unfamiliar Roger Harding she was dealing with, the real Roger behind the gentle, mild-mannered persona he had created. She knew that now. She also realized he was a very dangerous Roger and that she would have to be extremely careful.

  “Leo is a little late,” she said, striving to conceal her terror, “but I expect him to show up here at any second.”

  Roger smiled sadly, as if deeply disappointed in her. “We both know that’s not true, Ms. Rowan. Or may I call you Jennifer? It does seem to me that we’ve reached a stage in our relationship where we ought to be comfortable with Christian names.”

  How could she have been such a stubborn fool? Jennifer asked herself. Coming here all alone had been a huge mistake, one that could very well cost her her life.

  “No, your friend is
n’t going to turn up,” Roger insisted. “He’s busy elsewhere interviewing suspects. I made certain of that before I came back to the room after realizing that burning the vanity case was only a precaution of no real consequence. That there’s something much more important I need to destroy, reluctant though I am to sacrifice it.”

  Jennifer watched him cross the room to the wardrobe. She waited until he had his back to her as he occupied himself with opening its doors, removing something from inside. This was her opportunity. She began to edge her way toward the door.

  He must have sensed her intention to flee. With his back still turned to her, he cautioned her softly, “Running would be a serious mistake, Jennifer.”

  She saw him slide his free hand into an inside pocket of his tweed jacket. When he swung around to face her, he was holding a small but very lethal-looking pistol.

  “Let’s do hope it won’t be necessary for me to use this.”

  She froze in obedient terror. Nodding in satisfaction, he returned the pistol to his pocket. But she knew he would whip it out again if she tried to get away.

  Draped over his other arm was the article he had taken from the peg in the wardrobe. The monk’s robe. He stroked its folds with an affection amounting to reverence.

  “I wore this when I was a brother here. That was many years ago. There was a different abbot then. One not nearly so kind and understanding as Father Stephen.”

  When Roger’s gaze lifted from the robe and met hers, she saw that his face had tightened in anger.

  “He felt I didn’t belong, that I was a misfit. I was persuaded to leave the order. And do you know why? It was all because of my veneration for the Madonna. Ignorant. They were all ignorant. None of them approached the adoration the Madonna deserves. They don’t now, even though very few of the brothers I knew then are still here at Warley.”

  There was the hot glow of a zealot in his eyes. Jennifer could see it on his face as well, hear it in his voice. The fever of a fanatic who had worshipped the Madonna for itself and not for what it symbolized. His deranged mind still worshipped it.