Part 5 (1/2)

”Wright understood them to be deadly serious, and he asked the man for a day to consider how to accomplish the task, for he knew that the girl Clara would likely spurn him, and he needed time to puzzle out what to do. The man agreed. Clemson Wright came straight to us, in fear for his own life and the life of his daughter. Fortune, however, was with us. Constable Brooke had just ten minutes earlier reported the murder of Sarah Wright by telegraph. Sergeant Bingham and I were in the coach bound for Aylesford as soon as the story was out of Wright's mouth.”

”And we mean to be back in London by supper time,” Sergeant Bingham put in. ”You lot can take that to the bank. Stand aside now and let us do our job and there won't be trouble.” He picked up his valise at that point, opened it, and blithely removed a straight-jacket. ”We've heard that the girl is given to fits.”

Detective Shadwell shrugged. ”It's unfortunate,” he said, looking straight at Kraken now as if taking particular notice of his face, which was petrified with fury. ”Sergeant Bingham is anxious to do his duty, once he knows what it is. He's tenacious in that regard.”

”The girl ain't in no condition to do nowt,” Kraken said. ”What I say is that you two servants of the people fetch Constable Brooke and bring him back along to Hereafter. We'll wait for him and for the Professor, too, who is right now looking into this business out at Dr. Pullman's. Professor St. Ives will get to the bottom of it quick enough see if he don't. There ain't no tearing hurry. Not now there ain't. The girl won't be murdered while Bill Kraken is with her. And G.o.d-d.a.m.n your supper,” he said to Sergeant Bingham. ”Them chin whiskers look like they was shaved off the a.r.s.e end of a Berks.h.i.+re hog. Put that d.a.m.ned filthy garment back in that there bag or by G.o.d I'll hang you with it.”

”Watch yourself, cully,” Sergeant Bingham warned, shaking his head.

Detective Shadwell held up a restraining hand. ”Take the pot off the boil, gentlemen!”

”Yes, Bill,” Mother Laswell. ”For heaven's sake do as he says. For my sake, Bill. We all want what's best for Clara.”

A change came over Kraken, who slumped a bit, shook his head tiredly, and said, ”I'll fix up Clara's bag,” his words evidently surprising Mother Laswell as much as they surprised Alice. ”Right is right,” he said, ”and legal is legal. I lost my head, gents. We can follow along into London on the train first thing in the morning and see that Clara's treated fair.”

”That's eminently sensible,” Detective Shadwell said to him. ”I thank you for your cooperation, sir. We'll get this sorted out, I a.s.sure you. Clemson Wright might be a viper, but he'll lead us to this criminal gang, whom we believe to have perpetrated a string of murders and mutilations. We'll see justice done for the girl and for her mother.”

”Aye,” said Kraken. ”That we will. Fetch in the squeakers,” he said to Mother Laswell. ”They won't ken what's happening. Get 'em out of the way.”

He pushed through to the doorway into the parlor, Alice stepping back into the parlor herself to allow him to pa.s.s. It came to her that she had been occupying doorways most of the afternoon, watching but doing little or nothing to help. She saw Kraken whisper into Clara's ear now, the girl immediately walking across the room, sighting as ever over the crook in her bent elbow. She opened one of the French windows and stepped out. The rain was nothing but a light mist now, but the ground was muddy, and the wind blew in through the open cas.e.m.e.nt.

Alice crossed the room to close the window, watching as Clara lifted her skirt with her free hand and hurried across to the door in the side of the barn, where Ned Ludd the mule again stood guard. Ned turned to follow Clara into the darkness when she let herself in. The entire business was puzzling, but when she looked for Bill Kraken he had disappeared down the hallway, deeper into the house. She returned to the kitchen, wis.h.i.+ng to heaven that Langdon would arrive.

Mother Laswell was herding the children in through the kitchen door just then, past Alice and away up the hall, leaving Alice alone with the two men. Detective Shadwell gazed at her silently, his face blank, while Sergeant Bingham helped himself to another handful of walnuts, winking at Alice as he did so, a look of plain l.u.s.t on his face. She responded by staring hard back at him until he looked away. Neither of the men was worth the price of yesterday's newspaper as far as she could see. Sergeant Bingham was a mere thug, and Detective Shadwell nothing but a hollow-headed mouthpiece. The Metropolitan Police must be a sorry lot if these two were representative samples.

”I've fetched the bag,” Kraken shouted from behind her, but when he strode past into the kitchen he was carrying a rifle at port arms. ”A bag of cartridge, I mean to say. This here's a Henry rifle,” he said, swinging it downward and pointing it between the two. ”You gents is just leaving, and you ain't a-taking Clara Wright. If Constable Brooke says we're to take Clara into London, then so be it, we'll do as he says, but she ain't a-going with the likes of you. And you can take that to the bank, you wh.o.r.eson b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!”

Sergeant Bingham reached into his coat, and Kraken aimed the rifle at his face and took a step forward as if to drive the barrel through the man's eye.

”Stand down, Sergeant!” Detective Shadwell said. ”And you take that rifle out of here, Mr. Kraken. You're confounded in your mind by this turn of events. I would be, too, perhaps. But you're treading on...”

”I'm a-going to tread on you two humbugs, Mr. Shat-well. See if I don't. Let's take this out into the yard, gents, the three of us and Mr. Henry. Mother Laswell don't allow no gunfire in the confines of the house. So if I've got to shoot you two down like dogs, it had best be outside under the sky where you can bleed into the dirt.”

”Be reasonable, sir...!”

”Get out!” Kraken yelled at Shadwell in a voice fit to carry in a hailstorm, and the two men turned and went out, Kraken following, muttering to himself.

”Keep your temper, Bill!” Alice said to his back uselessly, since he had already lost it. Then she saw that Bingham had left his valise, so she picked it up, crammed the straitjacket into it, and walked to the kitchen door, which stood open. The valise suddenly infuriated her, and she felt a great liking for Bill Kraken, who was at risk of undoing himself. The two policemen had already climbed into their brougham, both of them bl.u.s.tering at Kraken and uttering threats. He still had the rifle up, sighting down the barrel.

Alice pitched the valise through the kitchen door just as Sergeant Bingham hied-up the horses and made a turn in the yard between the house and the barn. Kraken, evidently caught up in a desire to shoot something, fired repeatedly into the valise, making the bag hop and skitter, and then stood and watched the brougham as it drove away down the lane in the direction of Aylesford.

St. Ives was still considering his duty to Mother Laswell, when, halfway along the lane to the farm, he heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Moments later a brougham pa.s.sed, necessarily close by and clipping along. One man sat inside, the other drove, both of them dressed in police uniforms, which, given the nearby gunfire, was a curious business, or so it seemed to St. Ives. The man within the brougham looked hard at St. Ives, as they pa.s.sed, his face in shadow, but he glanced away when he perceived that St. Ives was returning his gaze.

TEN.

LEAVING FOR LONDON.

”Mother informed me when I visited this morning,” Alice said, ”that Bill is ready to take Clara into the marshes if the two men return today. He won't give the girl up, nor will Mother.” Alice tilted a cheval gla.s.s and looked into it, pinning up her hair.

St. Ives nodded. ”Quite right, too, for Bill's own sake as well as Clara's. That caper with the rifle was unwise, although it was effective. I hope they consider my suggestion that they spend a quiet month or two in the north.” He had a small pile of clothing laid out on the bed, and his large portmanteau open next to it. Sunlight shone through the windows, and the weather was fair again, but could no longer be mistaken for summer. ”Two s.h.i.+rts should do the trick, I believe.”

”Two s.h.i.+rts?” she said. ”We'll be in London the better part of a week, Langdon. You're descending into a pit in the earth that's filthy with Thames mud. Four s.h.i.+rts is more to the point, and put in your sack coat and a topcoat.”

”Of course,” St. Ives said. ”Sack coat and topcoat it is, and the Monticello boots, I think. I've scarcely worn them since Tubby brought them back from Connecticut. Their soles are made of vulcanized rubber, a wonderful purchase on slick pavement.” He sat thinking for a moment and then said, ”I honor Bill Kraken immensely, you know, for his tenacity, but he's on thin ice here, Alice if in fact the two men in the brougham were on the up and up.”

”Indeed. But were they? I wondered at the time how they knew that Clara Wright had fits, as they put it. They had just come down from London, after all. I wonder how did this doubtful band of murderers determine that Clemson Wright was Sarah Wright's husband? Wright is a common name.”

”Perhaps Clemson Wright's involvement is a mere invention.”

”I'm inclined to believe that it might be,” Alice said, ”although we mustn't make unwarranted a.s.sumptions about Shadwell and Bingham, especially if Bill Kraken is in the room. He's easily provoked.”

”Invariably against provocative people, however, which is certainly a virtue of some variety, as well as a great danger.”

”In any event, Bill and Mother have decided to do as you suggest,” Alice said. ”She has a friend in Yorks.h.i.+re, a very secluded residence in the West Riding, where they can remain hidden from all and sundry. The sooner they leave the better, I told them, and they agreed to leave this very day.”

”Was there no hint of an accent in the taller of the two men this man Shadwell? Fringe whiskers, perhaps? A pince-nez? A Mediterranean cast to him? Spoke foreign, perhaps?”

”Not a bit of it.”

”I saw him briefly when we pa.s.sed on the road, although he was in shadow. It was obvious that he looked very intently at me, as if taking particular notice, almost as if he knew me, although I'm fairly certain I've never seen the man in my life.”

”Bill revealed that you were looking into the murder, I'm afraid, and that your return was imminent. That must have attracted his attention, and he wanted to know what sort of interloper you appeared to be.”

”Conceivably,” St. Ives said, moving toward the window. ”Look here, Alice. Here's Finn Conrad coming along atop Dr. Johnson, reading a book. I believe he's returning from Hereafter Farm, or that Johnson is returning from Hereafter Farm, bearing Finn. He told me that he meant to offer his condolences to Clara today.”

Alice stood up and joined him, the two of them watching as Finn swung along, gnawing on a cylinder of Dr. Johnson's sugar cane. ”Finn is a highly romantic lad, you know,” Alice said, ”and I don't refer to his literary tastes.”

”Finn? He's rough and ready, perhaps, and can do anything he sets his mind to, but romantic? Why do you say so?”

”Women have an eye for that sort of thing. He's been across to see Clara more than once, you know; any makes.h.i.+ft errand will provide him with an excuse.”

”To see Clara? I'm astonished, Alice. No, I put that wrongly. But one wouldn't have thought... I mean to say that I simply had no idea of it. A woman has an eye for such things, do you say? What does your woman's eye say about me? Am I romantic, then?”

”Certainly you are, dear, when your mind isn't taken up with sink-holes and Paleolithic avifauna. Just yesterday you complimented me by saying that I looked like a frog. That's worthy of a sonnet, surely. Finn is almost certainly sweet on Clara. He's sensitive, or so Mother Laswell tells me uncommonly so. He might easily perceive that Clara is fond of him, that she sees things within him that aren't visible on the surface. You'll admit that we often love the creatures that love us, human beings included. It's no great mystery. Mother told me that Clara can see evidence of it in Finn's 'golden halo,' as she calls it.”

”The boy sports a golden halo? I'm baffled by this sort of talk, Alice. It conveys very little meaning to my mind. But if Mother Laswell says that it's true, then so be it, golden halo or no golden halo. I've doubted her before and I've turned out to be a fool. I now possess what might be called a variegated skepticism.”