Part 25 (1/2)

”Hey!” Becker managed to shout.

The tall man kept choking De Quincey. The contrast between the tiny man and the large attacker was grotesque, like a giant choking a child.

”Stop!” Becker yelled.

The door to the corridor was ajar. With increasing strength in his legs, Becker stepped through. The shock of what was happening cleared the fog from his mind. He ran along the corridor and rammed the b.u.t.t end of his knife against the attacker's skull.

The blow should have knocked the attacker unconscious. Instead, the man merely turned in fury and startled Becker with the discovery that something protruded from his left eye socket. G.o.d in heaven, it looked like a spoon. Gore dripped from the socket.

The man released his hands from De Quincey's throat, dropping him to the floor in a heap. With an intense glare in his remaining eye, he reached under his coat. The next instant, he thrust a hand toward Becker. The hand held something that glinted, and Becker ducked back in time to realize that the object was a knife. The blade slashed across Becker's chest, slicing his coat, nicking his skin. He lurched farther back as the attacker spun the knife so that its glint resembled a furiously pivoting wheel. The movement was too fast for Becker to follow. All he could do was keep stumbling away from the terrifying blur, moving just fast enough that pieces of his coat parted but not his skin.

At once the attacker lurched rather than lunged. He jerked forward, falling. Becker saw that De Quincey had grabbed the attacker's ankles, tripping him.

The attacker dropped, face forward, onto the floor. He cried out, trembled, and suddenly became still.

Becker shook, straining to adjust to what had happened. De Quincey gasped for air, his throat red from the finger marks of the attacker.

Cautiously, Becker turned the attacker onto his back. The spoon had been rammed all the way into the man's head, the round part barely visible. The man's expression was lifeless.

”Can't,” De Quincey murmured, ”breathe.”

Becker hurried to him. De Quincey had blood spattered on his face and his clothes, but as much as Becker could determine, the blood wasn't his.

”Take shallow breaths,” Becker told him. ”Your throat's swollen, but nothing's broken, or else you wouldn't be able to talk.”

De Quincey nodded.

”Take shallow breaths,” Becker repeated, ”and let your throat relax. You'll soon breathe normally.”

”Was...?”

”Don't try to talk.”

”... real?”

Becker didn't understand.

”Was it real?” De Quincey sounded as if he were more afraid for his sanity than he was for his life. ”Did it happen? It wasn't the laudanum?”

”It definitely happened,” Becker a.s.sured him.

”Father!”

Becker turned and saw Emily clinging to the bars at the end of the corridor.

He ran to her as the jailer staggered from his office, rubbing the back of his neck.

”I think we've been drugged,” Becker told them.

Outside, footsteps charged toward the door. Accompanied by two guards, Ryan hurried in from the darkness.

He wore his shapeless street clothes again, his cap covering most of his red hair. Bewildered, he looked at Becker's slashed coat before he noticed the body in the corridor.

”That's the killer,” Becker said.

DRUGGED,” the jailer confirmed. ”Every prisoner and every guard who works in this building.”

”The food?” Ryan asked.

”Yes. What the outside guards ate wasn't tampered with. Only in here,” the jailer elaborated. ”We use civilians to prepare the food. One of them must have been bribed.”

”The guard at the gate says the dead man claimed to have a message from Lord Palmerston,” Ryan said. ”A sure way to get into the prison. We found the note in the governor's office. All it says is 'Treat the Opium-Eater as harshly as possible.' The governor probably didn't have a chance to read it before he was stabbed.”

”Then the killer came to this building, saw that we were all asleep, found the key, and went to Mr. De Quincey's cell,” Becker concluded. He drank coffee to help clear his mind from the drug. ”I searched him, but he doesn't have anything on his clothes to identify him.”

”A message from Lord Palmerston?” Ryan sounded doubtful. ”I know several people on Lord Palmerston's staff, but I never saw this man before. Maybe a newspaper sketch artist can produce a good likeness of him. Possibly someone can identify him.”

The group was in the room where Becker and Emily had fallen asleep. Emily sat with her father on the cot. The attacker's blood remained on De Quincey's face.

”You haven't explained the spoon,” the jailer noted with suspicion. ”How did you get the spoon?”

De Quincey seemed not to hear the question. He trembled from the effects of the fierce battle for his life.

And from the cramps of laudanum withdrawal.

”Emily, did you refill my flask?”

”I never had the chance, Father. I never left the prison.”

De Quincey shuddered.

”Tell me how you got the spoon,” the jailer persisted.

”I gave it to him,” Emily said.

The jailer's mouth hung open.

”Inspector Ryan”-De Quincey's voice was hoa.r.s.e-”who knew I was being brought to this prison?”

”For starters, all the newspaper reporters you saw when you arrived. Lord Palmerston spread the word far and wide. By late this afternoon, it was common knowledge. He wanted to make certain that people thought you were the main suspect and that you were off the streets.”

”To make people feel safe.” After everything that had happened, De Quincey looked even smaller than usual, trembling on the cot.

”That's right.”

”But now other murders have occurred.”