High Rhymes and Misdemeanors

by Diana Killian

“Maybe we can strike a deal,” Roy Blade was saying.

  “I’m all ears.” Peter sounded mildly interested.

  They were gathered in the shop. Roy sat on the floor with his hands tied behind him. Monica and Grace were seated on a wrought-iron garden bench, like Victorian ladies enjoying the botanical gardens. The iron bench had survived the recent break-in without a scratch, which was more than one could say for Roy Blade. His good eye was puffy and his nose bore traces of its recent encounter with the stone floor of the passageway. Calum and Peter stood poised over him, prepared for action. And Grace didn’t blame them. Even seated and battered, Blade made an imposing figure in his black leather and eye patch. When standing, he had to be well over six foot, taller even than Calum, and certainly broader.

  “I’ll be the first to admit things got out of hand,” Blade added.

  The thing that didn’t fit was his surprisingly educated accent. “Barmy for Byron,” Peter had said, referring to Blade a day or so ago. (Was it only the day before?) He sounded more like an Oxford don than Calum. Was he some sort of renegade scholar?

  “That was your bike in the woods at Penwith Hall,” Grace guessed.

  The onyx-black eye turned her way. “That’s right.”

  “But it wasn’t you I tangled with,” Peter said slowly.

  “We’ve never tangled,” Blade said. “Not until a few minutes ago and that was…er…unavoidable.” His eye flicked back to Grace. “I was just doing a bit of surveillance that other time.”

  “And the day in these woods?”

  Blade’s face grew wary. “Which day in which woods?”

  “Our woods. I mean, the Innisdale woods. I saw you watching the police,” Grace said.

  Blade shrugged, “Like I said, a bit of surveillance, that’s all.”

  “How did you get in here?” Peter interrupted. “How did you find out about the outside entrance to the passageway?”

  “I did my homework,” Blade said. Something about the way he said it caused Grace to wonder what he was hiding. Probably a great deal. Blade added, unconvincingly, “A lot of local people know the history of this house. And I’ve access to certain resources through the library.”

  It made sense but somehow it didn’t ring true, and if it didn’t ring true, Grace surmised, it was because Blade was hiding something. Obviously he was hiding how he got the information about the secret passage. But this seemed puzzling because, all things being relative, this was a fairly innocuous piece of information. The fact that Blade was concealing his source meant that his source must be involved in the rest of this mess. And that he felt compelled to protect him. Or her.

  “Anyway, look,” Blade said, “What I’m trying to tell you is this is all one big misunderstanding. I was under a—er—misapprehension.”

  “Now this is interrresting,” Calum put in. “And a coincidence, seeing that you have been apprrrehended.”

  Blade, beginning to sweat in his black leather, said, “I’ll tell you what I know, although it isn’t much, if you’ll let me go. See, I’m out of it now anyway.”

  “That you are, laddie.”

  Peter, eyes narrowed, said, “What misapprehension?”

  “I thought you might be on to something that I might, well, might have an interest in. It was merely an academic interest, you understand.”

  “Like what?”

  Uncomfortably, Blade said, “I thought there might be the possibility that you were on the trail of a lost manuscript. One of his.”

  “One of whose?” Monica questioned. She was asking Calum and of course he had no notion.

  “Why should you think that?” Peter inquired.

  Blade shrugged. “Word gets around.”

  “I think you’d better start at the beginning.”

  “That would be helpful,” Monica chimed in.

  Grace studied Blade. His hands, tied efficiently behind him, were big and nail bitten. The edges of inky and ornate tattoos peeped out from beneath his leather cuffs and scrolled across the back of his hands. No wedding ring. Did biker dudes wear wedding rings?

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  “Huh?” said Peter and Blade in unison.

  “An interesting development,” Monica remarked to no one.

  “No,” Blade said, and then intriguingly, blushed.

  Noting this, Monica said to Grace, “I think you may be on to something.”

  Grace turned to Peter, “You and I were the only people who thought we might be looking for a manuscript rather than the…gewgaws. Everyone else involved knew what we were hunting for. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “But you and I suggested to Lady Vee that we might be looking for a long-lost masterpiece.”

  Peter’s gaze seemed to turn inward, rerunning some telling memory. His mouth quirked slightly. “I recall.”

  “And the first time I noticed Blade was after we went to Lady Vee’s and suggested that we were looking for a manuscript.”

  “But Lady Vee knew what we were looking for, even before we did.”

  “Sure, but…” Grace hesitated, still working it out in her own head. “Suppose it was to her advantage to let someone else believe that a lost Byronic masterpiece was at stake.”

  “A lost Byronic masterpiece!” Monica and Calum echoed.

  “It’s a little more complicated than we led you to believe,” Grace confessed to Monica. “I’ll explain later.” Calum’s eyes were incandescent; Grace recognized the symptoms.

  “You’re on the wrong track,” Blade said shortly. “I’ve barely ever spoken to the old bat. Certainly not about this.”

  “Not Lady Vee,” Grace agreed, warming to her theory. “Allegra. Lady Vee would have told her niece everything we said, and Allegra must have thought the lure of a lost manuscript would be what she needed to recruit some help. They need help, that’s for sure.”

  Blade folded his lips stubbornly but his face was very red.

  Peter said wryly, “Al’s been observing the Byron mania for enough years to know how to trigger it in one of the afflicted.”

  “You’re daft,” Blade said. “Leave her out of it.”

  “And Al’s family has lived here for how many generations?” Grace added. “You said that a number of people were familiar with the stories about Craddock House.”

  Peter turned to Roy Blade. “How about it, Blade? What did she offer you?”

  “Go to hell. I told you I’m out of it.”

  “Maybe. When did she bring you in on it?”

  Blade didn’t answer. Peter prodded, “Before or after Delon was murdered?”

  Blade’s mouth dropped, displaying white and amazingly beautiful teeth. “Who? What are you—I had nothing to do with murder! I’m not into wet work.”

  Grace felt the hair on the back of her neck rise at this ugly term. She could see the revulsion on Monica and Calum’s faces, but Peter looked stone cold.

  “No? What are you into?”

  “I told you. A missing manuscript, well that would have been right up my lane, but this stuff. Jewels!” Blade snorted. “They’re in over their heads, and that’s what I plan on telling them.” He lifted his arms. “Now either untie me or phone the cops, because I’m tired of sitting on this bloody floor.”

  “Don’t let him go,” Calum cautioned. “I don’t trust him.”

  “Listen, mate,” Blade said to Peter, “you owe me. I’m the one who called the coppers when that bloody wog started trashing your pad.”

  “But you followed us to Penwith Hall,” Grace objected.

  “I drove down after the cops nicked Gunga Din. I know he’s Sweet’s man.”

  “Don’t trust him,” Calum repeated.

  “I don’t,” said Peter, “but I tend to believe him, as far as his story goes.” He spoke to Blade, “So if you’re out of it, why were you skulking around here today?”

  Blade said bitterly, “It wasn’t until today that I found out what it was all about.” His good eye rested on Grace fo
r an instant. “I had my suspicions but then this afternoon I heard her explaining to the other bird about stolen jewels. I knew that was a crock, but there was enough truth in it to—”

  “You were listening to us?” Grace exclaimed.

  “My God, that’s creepy,” Monica said. She shivered.

  A little maliciously, Blade said, “Too right I was. This place is riddled with peepholes and listening stations.”

  “I thought you said it was as safe as a fortress!” Grace accused Peter.

  “It depends on the fortress,” Blade said. “Maybe he meant one of those old Roman ruins.”

  “Do keep out of it,” Peter said.

  “It’s a little late for that,” Grace said.

  Blade laughed.