Hell bay, p.12
Hell Bay, page 12
My leave-taking would be neither too quick nor too slow. My employer had taught me how to leave a room with one’s head held high.
We had been beaten but for a time only. We had lost the battle, but not the war. My own condition was unimportant. I worked for Cyrus Barker and was paid well, no matter what the case. But I worried about him. He was a true Scotsman and could brood with the best of them. He’ll speak of patience and Asian philosophy, but deep down he held strong feelings. Now we were on this infernal island, facing Hell Bay, and his friends were few and far between. I had to keep the black dogs from tearing him down.
Neither of them had even had a chance to eat. Kerry had started haranguing them early. I ran to the kitchen to request a couple of private breakfasts to be delivered to the first floor. They took pity on me and fed me too, right there in the kitchen.
I did not want to intrude on Barker and Mrs. Ashleigh’s privacy, and I didn’t feel like anyone else’s company. I took myself to the library, to a quiet and secluded corner, and looked for a book. Spenser’s Faerie Queene came to hand. I had read it at university, but one rarely has a chance to enjoy a book there. One is busy trying to ingest it for the next essay. This was my chance to read it for pleasure, if there was a thing on the planet called pleasure anymore. I had my doubts.
The chair was soft, the light was bright, the book awaited me. It was difficult to begin, but some books are worth the effort. I persevered. It was close to forty-five minutes of hard work before I actually fell asleep in the chair, and anyway, I didn’t sleep more than half an hour.
Rubbing my face awake, I took the book with me up to the first floor, reasoning that their breakfast must be over by now.
Failure, I thought. Oh, I was well acquainted with it myself, but not as an employee of Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent. Don’t think he never failed, because of course he did. He was only a man, after all. But it didn’t happen often, and we rarely had our faces rubbed in it. I didn’t much care for it, Algernon Kerry with his ill temper and his sneering ways. I’m just a bloke, I know. A collier’s brat from Gwent, literally no one. He was the Honorable. Shouldn’t he act like it? I was a human being after all, and I wanted nothing from him.
What was the bee in his bonnet? Was he naturally ill-tempered? Had we done something to him we didn’t understand? Had I frowned when he spoke unkindly to Cesar, or was he angry that I had carried the bags one minute and sat at the same table by him the next?
I suppose it was not me at all. It was Barker he had issue with, and his assumption that he was in charge. Some people just have to hold the reins in order to feel secure, and Kerry was one of those people. Barker isn’t one of those people per se, unless he is trying to accomplish something important. As long as people are safe and everyone is being treated fairly, people can do or say or think whatever they like.
One can think about someone’s motivations for a time, but one eventually runs out of material. Kerry was true to himself. Gascoigne could not get over the death of his friend, and now he had put himself in danger.
Eventually I went upstairs again, and found Barker reading also. We were not supposed to have easy days here. The man in the woods was seeing to that.
He was making a good show of it, but I knew the morning conversation had cut. He was brooding over it. Mrs. Ashleigh was, as well. She had been grossly insulted, and as if to prove her point, she did not enter our room. Barker and I spent the day reading, our meals brought to us on a tray.
It was nearly nine o’clock that evening when there was a sudden rap upon our door. I got up from my chair and answered it.
“Cesar, what is it?” I asked.
“I must speak to Mr. Barker,” he said, looking agitated.
“What is it?” Barker asked over my shoulder.
“Sir, I brought a drink to Mr. Burrell in the study, but the doors are locked and I cannot rouse him by calling. I thought I would consult you before trying to break one down. They are very heavy doors.”
Barker slipped on his evening jacket and stretched out a palm. “Lead the way, sir.”
We hurried down the hall to the staircase.
At the bottom of the stair a party of concerned guests had already formed. The colonel was calling out Burrell’s name, hoping to get some kind of response. Meanwhile, Kerry was jiggling the handle roughly and beating on the door.
“Where is the key?” the Guv asked.
“The butler is bringing it,” Fraser said.
Barker pushed his way through and knelt down to look in the keyhole. There was no key on the other side obstructing the lock. The Guv pulled the skeleton key he habitually kept in his waistcoat pocket and began to work it in the lock. By the time the butler arrived with the house keys Barker had the door open. In a rush we all stepped inside.
A fire was going in the grate and Burrell was seated at a large desk covered over with important papers. I noticed right off the knife thrust down through his dress shirt into his chest. Paul Burrell had not survived forty-eight hours as the heir of Godolphin House.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A few hours before we had been talking with Paul Burrell across the table, and now his eyes were staring vaguely into the beyond. No matter how many crimes we investigate, and how many bodies I am forced to view, I can never fathom the calm glare corpses have, as if stopped in the middle of a thought. Paul’s head was leaning back against the high-backed chair, and his eyes were focused or focusless toward the right, as if he’d watched the blade enter his breast, which he probably had.
The Guv and I had discussed the rumor that a corpse’s eyes would capture the last image they saw. We both agreed the idea was ridiculous, and yet, there is so little on this earth one can be certain of. As Paul Burrell lay collapsed in his chair, I searched his irises for some kind of image. I found nothing save the light fixture reflected in his eyes.
“How did the killer get out of the room?” Kerry asked. Normally there would be police constables underfoot, making sure that no one inappropriate came in. Kerry seemed the very definition of the word.
“Obviously he had the key,” Gascoigne stated.
“Or one like it.”
“Just what are you implying, Mr. Kerry?”
“You tell me, Mr. Barker. You were hired to protect us and so far four of us are dead. Six more were nearly poisoned to death.”
“Oh, come now!” I said. “The first bullet came out of nowhere and without warning.”
“I hardly think your testimony counts, considering you work for him, old boy. I’m sure you are being well paid.”
“I—” I began, but Barker cut me off.
“Mr. Kerry is welcome to his opinion, Mr. Llewelyn. After all, his life is at stake just as much as anyone’s. Mr. Burrell, are you of the same opinion?”
The latter was directed at Percy Burrell, the youngest son and presumably the heir.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You were hired as a bodyguard and now my father and my brother are dead.”
“Colonel?”
“It’s deuced bad luck is all, but it is your watch, old man.”
“Thank you. Ambassador, what is your opinion?”
The Frenchman stared at the floor with his heavy-lidded round eyes, weighing the matter seriously.
“I cannot help but think that Delacroix would have at least saved the heir from dying.”
Barker gave a cold smile. As for me, I was angry as a wet cat. Damn and blast every one of them for the ungrateful wretches they were. I suspect they would have all been dead by now without my employer.
“I suggest we go through the family papers carefully, Mr. Burrell. They may have some bearing upon the case. If that is all, I hope you will excuse me, gentlemen.”
“I’m not done, Barker!” Kerry said. “There is still the matter of that passkey you possess. You could have come in here and killed Paul when he was going through his papers. He was a friend of mine, who stood by me when others wouldn’t.”
“You accuse me of murder?” Barker asked.
“I do. Nobody else had a key, except on the housekeeper’s ring.”
“And what reason would I have?”
“How in hell should I know? What reason would that madman outside have who has been shooting at us for days? You might be in league with him. I don’t know you from Adam.”
I reached across to a table where a three-day-old copy of the Times lay. I turned to Barker’s advertisement, which I suspected His Lordship had seen a week ago.
“Here,” I said. “Here’s our advertisement, which appears daily. What more proof do you need? Obviously the Times finds us reliable.”
“How do we know you are this fellow; that you are who you claim to be?” Kerry asked.
“The question is moot,” Barker said. “Most of us have never met and we don’t carry complete proof of our identity. Now that I have resigned, who will oversee everyone’s protection?”
“We’ll get along fine without you, sir,” Kerry replied.
“Every man for himself?” Barker asked, setting the passkey down on the table.
“No.” Kerry looked about at the group of men. “The colonel could do it. We will take orders from a military man.”
“I’ve been in two wars,” Barker stated.
“Which ones?” the colonel asked.
I noticed he had not accepted Kerry’s offer. He was merely considering the matter. I thought he had been wondering about Barker’s past.
“The Taiping Rebellion and the Boshin War.”
“Went native, did you?” Fraser asked, with a hint of disapproval in his voice.
“Sometimes it was necessary in order to live.”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly remembering. I pulled a pocket watch from my pocket. “This is from the Prince of Wales. We worked with the palace on several occasions.”
Kerry looked it over. The watch was engraved.
Presented to Cyrus Barker for services rendered.
The Prince of Wales
“Anyone can engrave a watch for a few shillings. The more unscrupulous ones will put on whatever you like.”
The problem with taking as many antagonistics classes as I have is that one’s mind starts picturing how to grass a fellow that one knows is completely unfeasible. In this case, I fantasized about raising my right limb, pivoting on my left, and wiping that smirk off Kerry’s face with the heel of my boot.
“Mrs. Ashleigh has known me for decades, and has been telling Her Ladyship about me for nearly as long.”
“Hearsay,” Kerry said.
“You should stand for the House of Commons, sir,” Barker said. “You debate well.”
I almost pointed out that Barker was a thirty-third-degree Mason, but he had sworn me to secrecy about the matter, and anyway, some trust them, while others do not.
“There are too many questions about you, Barker,” the aristocrat continued. “Who are your parents? Why do you hide behind the spectacles? I’ve heard you have a lot of money, but no one seems to know how you earned it. Two nights ago I saw you climb out of a window and down an almost sheer wall with just your fingers. Where were you going?”
“To track this fellow at night when he was at his most vulnerable,” Barker answered.
“Or perhaps to rendezvous with him.”
“Raising suspicions, sir, is not the same as providing proof, no matter how good at it you might be.”
“If we have suspicions about you, Barker, we cannot fully trust you. The colonel I trust implicitly.”
“Is that the general consensus, gentlemen?” the Guv asked, looking about.
No one would fully answer his gaze.
“Very well,” Barker said. “You have my resignation. We will accept a payment at a later date for what duties we have done to this point.”
“Hear, hear,” Kerry said, with a chuckle.
“Come along, Thomas. Good evening, gentlemen.”
I have seen Cyrus Barker when his blood was up. He punches things, generally things that could withstand the abuse such as brick walls or marble. This time he did nothing, causing me to wonder if one can ever really know a person well enough to anticipate him.
The house suddenly seemed as large as a castle again. Every step seemed to scorch dignity. We had never been treated to such abuse. Even the Guv’s enemies respect him. As angry as I was with Kerry, I was equally furious with the ambassador and young Percy. Not as good as Delacroix! I should have reminded Gascoigne that his vaunted detective was now a corpse, while Barker was very much alive. When we reached Barker’s room I threw myself into a chair. Seizing a Staffordshire statuette from a table, I’m afraid I snapped his neck.
“Mr. Llewelyn,” Barker chided. “We are guests here. Besides, that is a pitiful way to treat Old Tom Morris, a credit to my race.”
“Sorry, sir. Kerry just made me so furious!”
He picked up the two pieces. “Perhaps we can get it repaired in the morning.”
“Why not,” I said bitterly. “We have plenty of time now. Sacked! I cannot believe it.”
The inner door opened and Mrs. Ashleigh swept in.
“Sacked?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“Thought as much. I have not fared much better with Celia. Whenever I ask a probing question she says she really can’t bear to discuss the matter, then goes on for half an hour about how she feels, physically and emotionally.”
Barker scratched under his chin and thought. “Let someone else worry about the French ambassador.”
“And what shall we do in the meantime?” I asked.
Barker turned to Philippa. “My dear, do you have a penny in your reticule?”
Mrs. Ashleigh reached for her reticule, a crocheted bag of pale pink, and began rummaging around in it as if it were three times its size. Finally, she pulled out a change purse, and having dug around in that for a minute, finally put a penny into my employer’s outsized palm.
“Thank you. Thomas, note please that we have a new client, and that she has paid us a retainer.”
I chuckled. Barker can be unintentionally funny sometimes. “I see. And what does she want us to do?”
“To investigate what is really going on here on Godolphin Isle, and to get to the bottom of this, so we can leave. Oh, and to protect her, of course.”
“What about everyone else?” I asked.
“We can make no guarantees, Thomas. A very competent killer is out there somewhere on the grounds, intent upon murdering whom he will, and he’s carrying what I might consider the deadliest weapon on the planet. Meanwhile, we are trapped like sheep in a pen. To promise that everyone will emerge unscathed is madness and folly. What I can promise is to investigate as quickly as possible and to do my best to close with my adversary. I do not envy the colonel. Saving everyone will be a near impossible task.”
Barker sat on the bed and began removing his shoes.
“We were not sacked. We resigned. Under pressure, it is true, but the choice was ours.”
He pulled his limbs up onto the bed and crossed them, lotus fashion. He settled a hand loosely on each knee, doing one of his meditation exercises to calm himself. It was more than I could stand. I jumped out of the chair.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said.
“Don’t get yourself shot,” he replied as an afterthought. He was already going into wherever his mind went at such times.
“This is why they don’t want you, you know,” I couldn’t help saying.
He made no response. His mind was no longer in the brain, perhaps not even on the island.
I left. I needed that walk. Mrs. Ashleigh followed me into the hall, looking very grave.
“You heard?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “We are disgraced. All of us.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Detection is not like laying bricks or knitting a scarf. There are a thousand possible outcomes.”
“Yes.”
“I could have done without the looks of pity,” she said.
“No doubt. He’s meditating like a Buddhist holy man! At least one of us is taking it lightly.”
“Oh, no, Thomas, believe me. He is taking it very seriously. You should know him well enough by now to understand he always feels things keenly. He will still triumph.”
“Not today, ma’am.”
“If not today, then tomorrow.”
“I’m going for a walk,” I said.
“Be—”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be careful.”
I seized my hat and stick and stepped outside. Then I kicked the step. Godolphin House felt nothing, and I succeeded only in stubbing my toe. Then I began to walk across the lawn.
As I walked I began to ask questions. That is what I do best. Why did he assess and not shoot me? Oh, he shot at me, but he could have killed me if he wanted to. He shot Lord Hargrave. He stabbed Paul Burrell, Delacroix, and Flannan. He poisoned the male servants, although they ultimately lived. He shot at Cesar. Come to think of it, he shot at him twice. Surely he didn’t come here just to terrorize a Brazilian servant. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason. He was killing indiscriminately but not, as Barker said, opportunistically, or Cesar and I would be dead. What was his plan? Did he have one? Was he merely passing time?
I reached the short wall by the cliff and wasted close to half an hour simply throwing rocks over it into the ocean. No matter how hard I threw the splash was nothing compared to the crashing waves beating against the boulders below. It seemed somehow symbolic of what we had accomplished so far.
My anger eventually evaporated to be replaced by fatigue and listlessness. What was I accomplishing? If I threw in enough rocks perhaps we could walk to Land’s End.
I put my head on again and headed back toward the house. It was another ironically beautiful evening. Nature is beautiful, I told myself, but nothing but evil dwelt continuously in the hearts of men.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next morning before breakfast I found myself still seething from our exile. I left by the back door, took the narrow stone staircase to the beach, and walked until I could no longer see that accursed house. Then I stripped down and dove into the ocean. The water was bracing and salty, lashing my skin like an astringent, but it felt wonderful after everything I had gone through. At first I had thought this island a paradise, but now I contemplated just swimming away and never coming back, no matter how dangerous it was. It was just a feeling, though, and it quickly dissipated after a swim in the briny ocean.
We had been beaten but for a time only. We had lost the battle, but not the war. My own condition was unimportant. I worked for Cyrus Barker and was paid well, no matter what the case. But I worried about him. He was a true Scotsman and could brood with the best of them. He’ll speak of patience and Asian philosophy, but deep down he held strong feelings. Now we were on this infernal island, facing Hell Bay, and his friends were few and far between. I had to keep the black dogs from tearing him down.
Neither of them had even had a chance to eat. Kerry had started haranguing them early. I ran to the kitchen to request a couple of private breakfasts to be delivered to the first floor. They took pity on me and fed me too, right there in the kitchen.
I did not want to intrude on Barker and Mrs. Ashleigh’s privacy, and I didn’t feel like anyone else’s company. I took myself to the library, to a quiet and secluded corner, and looked for a book. Spenser’s Faerie Queene came to hand. I had read it at university, but one rarely has a chance to enjoy a book there. One is busy trying to ingest it for the next essay. This was my chance to read it for pleasure, if there was a thing on the planet called pleasure anymore. I had my doubts.
The chair was soft, the light was bright, the book awaited me. It was difficult to begin, but some books are worth the effort. I persevered. It was close to forty-five minutes of hard work before I actually fell asleep in the chair, and anyway, I didn’t sleep more than half an hour.
Rubbing my face awake, I took the book with me up to the first floor, reasoning that their breakfast must be over by now.
Failure, I thought. Oh, I was well acquainted with it myself, but not as an employee of Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent. Don’t think he never failed, because of course he did. He was only a man, after all. But it didn’t happen often, and we rarely had our faces rubbed in it. I didn’t much care for it, Algernon Kerry with his ill temper and his sneering ways. I’m just a bloke, I know. A collier’s brat from Gwent, literally no one. He was the Honorable. Shouldn’t he act like it? I was a human being after all, and I wanted nothing from him.
What was the bee in his bonnet? Was he naturally ill-tempered? Had we done something to him we didn’t understand? Had I frowned when he spoke unkindly to Cesar, or was he angry that I had carried the bags one minute and sat at the same table by him the next?
I suppose it was not me at all. It was Barker he had issue with, and his assumption that he was in charge. Some people just have to hold the reins in order to feel secure, and Kerry was one of those people. Barker isn’t one of those people per se, unless he is trying to accomplish something important. As long as people are safe and everyone is being treated fairly, people can do or say or think whatever they like.
One can think about someone’s motivations for a time, but one eventually runs out of material. Kerry was true to himself. Gascoigne could not get over the death of his friend, and now he had put himself in danger.
Eventually I went upstairs again, and found Barker reading also. We were not supposed to have easy days here. The man in the woods was seeing to that.
He was making a good show of it, but I knew the morning conversation had cut. He was brooding over it. Mrs. Ashleigh was, as well. She had been grossly insulted, and as if to prove her point, she did not enter our room. Barker and I spent the day reading, our meals brought to us on a tray.
It was nearly nine o’clock that evening when there was a sudden rap upon our door. I got up from my chair and answered it.
“Cesar, what is it?” I asked.
“I must speak to Mr. Barker,” he said, looking agitated.
“What is it?” Barker asked over my shoulder.
“Sir, I brought a drink to Mr. Burrell in the study, but the doors are locked and I cannot rouse him by calling. I thought I would consult you before trying to break one down. They are very heavy doors.”
Barker slipped on his evening jacket and stretched out a palm. “Lead the way, sir.”
We hurried down the hall to the staircase.
At the bottom of the stair a party of concerned guests had already formed. The colonel was calling out Burrell’s name, hoping to get some kind of response. Meanwhile, Kerry was jiggling the handle roughly and beating on the door.
“Where is the key?” the Guv asked.
“The butler is bringing it,” Fraser said.
Barker pushed his way through and knelt down to look in the keyhole. There was no key on the other side obstructing the lock. The Guv pulled the skeleton key he habitually kept in his waistcoat pocket and began to work it in the lock. By the time the butler arrived with the house keys Barker had the door open. In a rush we all stepped inside.
A fire was going in the grate and Burrell was seated at a large desk covered over with important papers. I noticed right off the knife thrust down through his dress shirt into his chest. Paul Burrell had not survived forty-eight hours as the heir of Godolphin House.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A few hours before we had been talking with Paul Burrell across the table, and now his eyes were staring vaguely into the beyond. No matter how many crimes we investigate, and how many bodies I am forced to view, I can never fathom the calm glare corpses have, as if stopped in the middle of a thought. Paul’s head was leaning back against the high-backed chair, and his eyes were focused or focusless toward the right, as if he’d watched the blade enter his breast, which he probably had.
The Guv and I had discussed the rumor that a corpse’s eyes would capture the last image they saw. We both agreed the idea was ridiculous, and yet, there is so little on this earth one can be certain of. As Paul Burrell lay collapsed in his chair, I searched his irises for some kind of image. I found nothing save the light fixture reflected in his eyes.
“How did the killer get out of the room?” Kerry asked. Normally there would be police constables underfoot, making sure that no one inappropriate came in. Kerry seemed the very definition of the word.
“Obviously he had the key,” Gascoigne stated.
“Or one like it.”
“Just what are you implying, Mr. Kerry?”
“You tell me, Mr. Barker. You were hired to protect us and so far four of us are dead. Six more were nearly poisoned to death.”
“Oh, come now!” I said. “The first bullet came out of nowhere and without warning.”
“I hardly think your testimony counts, considering you work for him, old boy. I’m sure you are being well paid.”
“I—” I began, but Barker cut me off.
“Mr. Kerry is welcome to his opinion, Mr. Llewelyn. After all, his life is at stake just as much as anyone’s. Mr. Burrell, are you of the same opinion?”
The latter was directed at Percy Burrell, the youngest son and presumably the heir.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You were hired as a bodyguard and now my father and my brother are dead.”
“Colonel?”
“It’s deuced bad luck is all, but it is your watch, old man.”
“Thank you. Ambassador, what is your opinion?”
The Frenchman stared at the floor with his heavy-lidded round eyes, weighing the matter seriously.
“I cannot help but think that Delacroix would have at least saved the heir from dying.”
Barker gave a cold smile. As for me, I was angry as a wet cat. Damn and blast every one of them for the ungrateful wretches they were. I suspect they would have all been dead by now without my employer.
“I suggest we go through the family papers carefully, Mr. Burrell. They may have some bearing upon the case. If that is all, I hope you will excuse me, gentlemen.”
“I’m not done, Barker!” Kerry said. “There is still the matter of that passkey you possess. You could have come in here and killed Paul when he was going through his papers. He was a friend of mine, who stood by me when others wouldn’t.”
“You accuse me of murder?” Barker asked.
“I do. Nobody else had a key, except on the housekeeper’s ring.”
“And what reason would I have?”
“How in hell should I know? What reason would that madman outside have who has been shooting at us for days? You might be in league with him. I don’t know you from Adam.”
I reached across to a table where a three-day-old copy of the Times lay. I turned to Barker’s advertisement, which I suspected His Lordship had seen a week ago.
“Here,” I said. “Here’s our advertisement, which appears daily. What more proof do you need? Obviously the Times finds us reliable.”
“How do we know you are this fellow; that you are who you claim to be?” Kerry asked.
“The question is moot,” Barker said. “Most of us have never met and we don’t carry complete proof of our identity. Now that I have resigned, who will oversee everyone’s protection?”
“We’ll get along fine without you, sir,” Kerry replied.
“Every man for himself?” Barker asked, setting the passkey down on the table.
“No.” Kerry looked about at the group of men. “The colonel could do it. We will take orders from a military man.”
“I’ve been in two wars,” Barker stated.
“Which ones?” the colonel asked.
I noticed he had not accepted Kerry’s offer. He was merely considering the matter. I thought he had been wondering about Barker’s past.
“The Taiping Rebellion and the Boshin War.”
“Went native, did you?” Fraser asked, with a hint of disapproval in his voice.
“Sometimes it was necessary in order to live.”
“Wait,” I said, suddenly remembering. I pulled a pocket watch from my pocket. “This is from the Prince of Wales. We worked with the palace on several occasions.”
Kerry looked it over. The watch was engraved.
Presented to Cyrus Barker for services rendered.
The Prince of Wales
“Anyone can engrave a watch for a few shillings. The more unscrupulous ones will put on whatever you like.”
The problem with taking as many antagonistics classes as I have is that one’s mind starts picturing how to grass a fellow that one knows is completely unfeasible. In this case, I fantasized about raising my right limb, pivoting on my left, and wiping that smirk off Kerry’s face with the heel of my boot.
“Mrs. Ashleigh has known me for decades, and has been telling Her Ladyship about me for nearly as long.”
“Hearsay,” Kerry said.
“You should stand for the House of Commons, sir,” Barker said. “You debate well.”
I almost pointed out that Barker was a thirty-third-degree Mason, but he had sworn me to secrecy about the matter, and anyway, some trust them, while others do not.
“There are too many questions about you, Barker,” the aristocrat continued. “Who are your parents? Why do you hide behind the spectacles? I’ve heard you have a lot of money, but no one seems to know how you earned it. Two nights ago I saw you climb out of a window and down an almost sheer wall with just your fingers. Where were you going?”
“To track this fellow at night when he was at his most vulnerable,” Barker answered.
“Or perhaps to rendezvous with him.”
“Raising suspicions, sir, is not the same as providing proof, no matter how good at it you might be.”
“If we have suspicions about you, Barker, we cannot fully trust you. The colonel I trust implicitly.”
“Is that the general consensus, gentlemen?” the Guv asked, looking about.
No one would fully answer his gaze.
“Very well,” Barker said. “You have my resignation. We will accept a payment at a later date for what duties we have done to this point.”
“Hear, hear,” Kerry said, with a chuckle.
“Come along, Thomas. Good evening, gentlemen.”
I have seen Cyrus Barker when his blood was up. He punches things, generally things that could withstand the abuse such as brick walls or marble. This time he did nothing, causing me to wonder if one can ever really know a person well enough to anticipate him.
The house suddenly seemed as large as a castle again. Every step seemed to scorch dignity. We had never been treated to such abuse. Even the Guv’s enemies respect him. As angry as I was with Kerry, I was equally furious with the ambassador and young Percy. Not as good as Delacroix! I should have reminded Gascoigne that his vaunted detective was now a corpse, while Barker was very much alive. When we reached Barker’s room I threw myself into a chair. Seizing a Staffordshire statuette from a table, I’m afraid I snapped his neck.
“Mr. Llewelyn,” Barker chided. “We are guests here. Besides, that is a pitiful way to treat Old Tom Morris, a credit to my race.”
“Sorry, sir. Kerry just made me so furious!”
He picked up the two pieces. “Perhaps we can get it repaired in the morning.”
“Why not,” I said bitterly. “We have plenty of time now. Sacked! I cannot believe it.”
The inner door opened and Mrs. Ashleigh swept in.
“Sacked?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“Thought as much. I have not fared much better with Celia. Whenever I ask a probing question she says she really can’t bear to discuss the matter, then goes on for half an hour about how she feels, physically and emotionally.”
Barker scratched under his chin and thought. “Let someone else worry about the French ambassador.”
“And what shall we do in the meantime?” I asked.
Barker turned to Philippa. “My dear, do you have a penny in your reticule?”
Mrs. Ashleigh reached for her reticule, a crocheted bag of pale pink, and began rummaging around in it as if it were three times its size. Finally, she pulled out a change purse, and having dug around in that for a minute, finally put a penny into my employer’s outsized palm.
“Thank you. Thomas, note please that we have a new client, and that she has paid us a retainer.”
I chuckled. Barker can be unintentionally funny sometimes. “I see. And what does she want us to do?”
“To investigate what is really going on here on Godolphin Isle, and to get to the bottom of this, so we can leave. Oh, and to protect her, of course.”
“What about everyone else?” I asked.
“We can make no guarantees, Thomas. A very competent killer is out there somewhere on the grounds, intent upon murdering whom he will, and he’s carrying what I might consider the deadliest weapon on the planet. Meanwhile, we are trapped like sheep in a pen. To promise that everyone will emerge unscathed is madness and folly. What I can promise is to investigate as quickly as possible and to do my best to close with my adversary. I do not envy the colonel. Saving everyone will be a near impossible task.”
Barker sat on the bed and began removing his shoes.
“We were not sacked. We resigned. Under pressure, it is true, but the choice was ours.”
He pulled his limbs up onto the bed and crossed them, lotus fashion. He settled a hand loosely on each knee, doing one of his meditation exercises to calm himself. It was more than I could stand. I jumped out of the chair.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said.
“Don’t get yourself shot,” he replied as an afterthought. He was already going into wherever his mind went at such times.
“This is why they don’t want you, you know,” I couldn’t help saying.
He made no response. His mind was no longer in the brain, perhaps not even on the island.
I left. I needed that walk. Mrs. Ashleigh followed me into the hall, looking very grave.
“You heard?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “We are disgraced. All of us.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Detection is not like laying bricks or knitting a scarf. There are a thousand possible outcomes.”
“Yes.”
“I could have done without the looks of pity,” she said.
“No doubt. He’s meditating like a Buddhist holy man! At least one of us is taking it lightly.”
“Oh, no, Thomas, believe me. He is taking it very seriously. You should know him well enough by now to understand he always feels things keenly. He will still triumph.”
“Not today, ma’am.”
“If not today, then tomorrow.”
“I’m going for a walk,” I said.
“Be—”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be careful.”
I seized my hat and stick and stepped outside. Then I kicked the step. Godolphin House felt nothing, and I succeeded only in stubbing my toe. Then I began to walk across the lawn.
As I walked I began to ask questions. That is what I do best. Why did he assess and not shoot me? Oh, he shot at me, but he could have killed me if he wanted to. He shot Lord Hargrave. He stabbed Paul Burrell, Delacroix, and Flannan. He poisoned the male servants, although they ultimately lived. He shot at Cesar. Come to think of it, he shot at him twice. Surely he didn’t come here just to terrorize a Brazilian servant. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason. He was killing indiscriminately but not, as Barker said, opportunistically, or Cesar and I would be dead. What was his plan? Did he have one? Was he merely passing time?
I reached the short wall by the cliff and wasted close to half an hour simply throwing rocks over it into the ocean. No matter how hard I threw the splash was nothing compared to the crashing waves beating against the boulders below. It seemed somehow symbolic of what we had accomplished so far.
My anger eventually evaporated to be replaced by fatigue and listlessness. What was I accomplishing? If I threw in enough rocks perhaps we could walk to Land’s End.
I put my head on again and headed back toward the house. It was another ironically beautiful evening. Nature is beautiful, I told myself, but nothing but evil dwelt continuously in the hearts of men.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next morning before breakfast I found myself still seething from our exile. I left by the back door, took the narrow stone staircase to the beach, and walked until I could no longer see that accursed house. Then I stripped down and dove into the ocean. The water was bracing and salty, lashing my skin like an astringent, but it felt wonderful after everything I had gone through. At first I had thought this island a paradise, but now I contemplated just swimming away and never coming back, no matter how dangerous it was. It was just a feeling, though, and it quickly dissipated after a swim in the briny ocean.
