Touchstone

by Laurie R. King

  Dear Miss Grey,

  I write to ask if you have news of your brother, Mr Bennett Grey. I was suposed to meet him at Penzance station on Weds night but he did not make it. So I thought maybe there had been a change of plans but if there was, could you please writ to me and let me know when I am to meet his train?

  Yours,

  Samuel Trevalian (Robbies brother)

  Stuyvesant felt a stir of unease as he folded the page and put it back into its envelope. He squinted at the cancellation, then handed the note back. “It was mailed Thursday. He probably decided to get off along the way. See the sights, stretch his legs overnight. He doesn’t seem to like trains all that much.”

  “Why wouldn’t he let Samuel know?”

  “Maybe he did. Telegrams get lost.”

  “He’s not there. I sent a telegram last night to be sure, and Samuel ’phoned me at seven this morning to say he wasn’t there, so I drove up here.”

  “Why? You should have ’phoned.”

  “Well, I thought…I don’t know why, actually, other than I felt unhappy about it and you’re his friend. I just…I thought it would help to see you. And I thought perhaps when you took him to the train, he might have said something.”

  Stuyvesant stared at her, hearing only her statement that she wanted to see him. Then he cleared his throat. “Far as I know, he was going to Penzance.” But even as he voiced the thought, he was hit by another: Aldous Carstairs, too, had been incommunicado since Wednesday. He immediately tried to push that knowledge out of his mind. What: abduction, from a train, in broad daylight?

  “Well, he didn’t.”

  “Where would he have gone, if not there?”

  She looked surprised. “Nowhere. I mean, why would he go elsewhere?”

  “Because he’s a grown man, having had his first taste of the outside world in years. Maybe he wanted to delay Cornwall just a bit longer.” She seemed to think it possible, although to his ear, the words echoed falsely through the chapel. “What about your mother? Did you ask there?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Oh, Harris, do you think…?”

  “Let’s go down to the house and ’phone your mother.”

  “Actually,” she said, “I’d rather not poke my face down there, while Laura’s so occupied. I already ’phoned her once about it last night; if I ask her again, she’ll start to worry about Bennett, on top of everything else.”

  “You didn’t bring your car?”

  “I left it at the Dog and Pony, where we had lunch last week, and walked from there.”

  “Okay. Well, what about the servants’ quarters? There’s a ’phone, and Laura won’t catch sight of you.”

  “How do you know there’s a telephone there?”

  “That’s where I’m staying. I’m Mr. Bunsen’s driver, remember?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yes.”

  “Let’s go down and use the ’phone, see if he’s paying a dutiful visit home. Okay?”

  She nodded, and then, standing there between the altar and the cross, she stepped forward to lean against him.

  She was small, smaller than her great vitality made one expect. Her straw cloche rested under his chin; her hands, the bare one still clutching the letter, came together beneath the lapels of his greatcoat. He held her, intensely aware of the size of his chest, filling and deflating, and of the beat of her heart; his hands, motionless against her back, memorized the shape of her bones. And then she shuddered, and it took him a moment to realize that it was not an emotion, but a physical reaction: Those bare fingers were blue with cold.

  “Hey,” he said, “you’re freezing. We need to get some hot tea into you.”

  She tipped back her upper body to laugh into his face, a position weirdly like that of the baby in the painting. “Good heavens, Harris, are we turning you into an Englishman, offering cups of tea?”

  “Well, a hot toddy would do better, but I figured you wouldn’t take one at this hour of the day. Don’t you have a heavier coat?”

  “I do,” she said, sounding both exasperated and resigned. “But it’s supposed to be spring. And besides, it’s generally thought that when we’re representing the working classes, it’s best to leave our furs at home.”

  “That’s just dumb,” he told her. “You don’t think a miner’s wife would wear a fur if she had one?”

  “Truly, one cannot win,” she admitted, and allowed herself to be escorted firmly out of the chapel.

  Down at the servants’ quarters, he poured them both cups of coffee from the bottomless pot, settled her at the telephone, and went to change into a less formal suit. The operator was remarkably efficient for a Saturday morning, and Sarah came back while he was knotting his tie.

  “She hasn’t seen him,” Sarah said, although he’d heard enough of her tone of voice coming up the stairs to be prepared for the news.

  “I may have an idea,” he told her. “Can you give me ten minutes, just to see that all is well over at the house?”

  “Yes,” she said, and he wanted to kiss her, for not delaying him with questions.

  He walked rapidly through the gardens to the servants’ door in the house. Exeter was there again, and looked up.

  “Quick nap,” he commented.

  “Yeah,” Stuyvesant said, and continued into the house.

  They were gathered in the solar, making it warm and a little crowded, but the windows stood open and no one seemed uncomfortable. Herbert Smith was talking, slow, gruff, and sensible; Laura saw Stuyvesant and slipped out, her eyebrows raised in a question.

  “Just checking,” Stuyvesant told her. “All going okay?”

  “Better than I’d expected.”

  “I just wanted to let you know, I’m going to slip into Oxford in a while to pick up a part for the car. I didn’t like a noise I heard, on the way up, but I’ve got it identified and I can fix it before we have to drive back.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “If you need anything, Mr. Exeter seems capable enough.”

  “We’re fine, Harris. Thank you.”

  And she went back to work, making a comment about something Smith had said, asking one of the mine owners to clarify a point.

  He trotted back downstairs, told Exeter he’d be off the premises for a few hours, and went to the servants’ hall to fetch Sarah. First, however, he went to his room, and retrieved his gun from beneath the pillow.

  She popped to her feet when he entered the buttery. “Where are we going?”

  “We’ll need your car.”

  “Are you going to tell me then?”

  “No, you’re going to tell me.”

  They saw one of the Duke’s men on the path near the chapel, and another at the gate on the ridge where the path ended. Once they were in the open fields, Sarah turned to Stuyvesant.

  “How are things progressing down there?”

  “It’s amazing. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, for enemies to sit and listen to each other like that. Your friend Laura might single-handedly haul them into an agreement.”

  “Isn’t she something?” Sarah said. “Laura always knows exactly what to say, and exactly how to say it. Have you noticed, she almost seems to put on separate voices for each person she’s talking to, so they feel more at home with her? Where do you get a talent like that?”

  “If she could bottle it, there’d never be another war.”

  “I sometimes wish she’d been in charge at Versailles. They ought to give her a medal, when this is over.”

  “You think anyone will admit to this week-end?”

  She sighed. “Probably not.”

  Twenty-five minutes after leaving the buttery, they were at Sarah’s motor, standing where she’d left it before the Medieval inn. The same bicycle stood against the wall. She stood at the car and looked at him expectantly.

  “So, where are we going?”

  If she’d been another woman, he’d have left her behind. As it was, he was tempted to take the keys and tell her h
e would be back, but he knew that talking her into giving him the directions would make for a delay, and he thought he could trust her not to lose her head in a tight place.

  “You remember how to get to the clinic Bennett stayed at, somewhere near here?”

  “That horrible place? Of course I can get there, but why? Bennett would never go there.”

  “Maybe not by choice.”

  She stared at him. Without a word, she opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  SARAH WAS A QUICK, ATTENTIVE DRIVER. She also knew the area very well, and twice dove into short-cuts between the major roads, merging from farm track back into paved road without a blink, but Stuyvesant could see the tension in her, and kept silent so as not to distract her.

  After twenty minutes, she asked, “Do you want me to motor up to the front door?”

  “Is there another way?”

  “Yes. Laura was driving, but I think I can find it. That way is shorter, but I have to go off here.”

  “Then go off here.”

  The road deteriorated, but she kept the speed up, traveling occasionally on the shoulder to save the tires from bad ruts.

  “Tell me the layout of the place,” he asked.

  “I’ll go with you, that would be easier.”

  “No. And not because you’re a girl,” he added, not entirely truthfully. “It’s just possible I’ll have to send Bennett out and stay behind, to talk to the people there. If that’s the case, I want you to be there to meet him and get him away. Take him…where would you take him?”

  “The Dog and Pony lets rooms,” she suggested. “And the innkeeper is a great friend of the Hurleighs, he wouldn’t say a word.”

  “Fine. Now, tell me what you know about the layout.” He found a scrap of paper and the stub of a pencil in his coat pocket, and sketched in the information she gave him.

  From the inside, she’d only seen the public rooms at the front, but she had once been upstairs, to her brother’s room, and she’d spent both her visits here walking through the grounds, so she could describe the outside in detail. He listened, asked questions, corrected the sketch, and felt he knew it as well as he could.

  Forty minutes after getting into the car, she steered hesitantly off the road, aiming directly at some low branches. They gave way, dragging against the car (Sarah clamped her hat on with one hand) with the sound of a witch’s finger-nail before revealing an overgrown track that clearly hadn’t been used in months, if not years.

  “Well done,” he said. “How far are we from the place now?”

  “About half a mile.”

  “I’ll get out here. Any closer and the engine will attract attention. Now, is this more or less accurate?”

  She studied his rough drawing, made a couple of minor corrections, and handed it back to him.

  “Harris, do you honestly think…?” She couldn’t complete the sentence, nor did Stuyvesant want her to.

  “I think Bennett is fine, just a little stuck. But if he and I don’t come back within an hour, we may both be stuck. In that case, I want you to promise you won’t come after us. The best thing would be to go talk to Laura—no, not Laura, the Duke. He likes Bennett, and he is well equipped to ride to the rescue.”

  “I promise. And, Harris? Thank you.”

  “He’s my friend, like you said.”

  “You be careful.”

  “Piece of cake, lady,” he said, and gave her cheek a quick peck before getting out of the car.

  Twenty yards away, he stopped to shift his gun from pocket to belt, and heard the car engine start up again. Puzzled, he looked back, and realized she was maneuvering it to face the opposite direction, for a quick getaway. He grinned: That’s my girl.

  Stuyvesant worked his way among the trees until he could see brick walls. It had been a country house, he thought, built by some Victorian who had cornered the market in wool blankets or pottery clay, then sold either when the bottom dropped out, or when all the sons died in one war or another. From the back it was an ugly building, although he doubted that the front was much more appealing.

  The bricks could use a repointing, the grass needed mowing, and weeds grew between the stones paving the yard behind the house. The doors to the garage behind the house stood open, showing two cars; a beat-up delivery van stood outside. The door to the house stood open as well, two steps up to a hallway, and probably a kitchen. No sign of life, other than the open doors.

  One advantage of a run-down house was, the shrubs near the walls hadn’t been pruned in a long time. He’d be able to hear a lot, once he was under them, and the day’s mild breeze would cover his movements.

  It was an easy matter to slip behind the garage, follow the fence that hid the clothes-line from sight, and cross ten feet to the corner of the house.

  Problem was, the house was silent. Not a voice, not a footstep, not even through the windows that stood open. There had to be people inside, but he couldn’t begin to guess where they were.

  Except for Grey, and that wasn’t in the upstairs room Sarah had visited. Several of the ground-floor windows had bars across them, but in one of those, the moving curtains billowed back far enough to show a desk littered with objects, one of which was a silver flask very like Grey’s. And although in the States pretty much every pocket had its flask, in this country, where booze was to be had for the asking, the pocket-flask was not as ubiquitous.

  He moved back around the house to the kitchen yard, found it still empty, its door standing open at the same angle as before. He took his gun from the small of his back and moved cautiously across the exposed wall and through the door. The sensation of being watched was strong, but then he was as exposed as a pea on a plate, so the sensation was inescapable.

  Once inside the thick walls, he could hear movement: someone walking across an upstairs room, water running into a vessel of some kind, nearer by. Holding the revolver up in front of him, he went down the hallway, passing an open doorway, then two closed doors.

  The door marking the end of the servants’ realm was propped open. Stuyvesant put his head around, and saw the expected jog in the hallway (Victorian builders didn’t like to inflict on their clients any view of the servants at work). He went down it, fully expecting at any second that Carstairs or one of his men would step out and raise the alarm, but the gentle impress of his shoes on the worn carpet was all he heard.

  Several doors, thick wooden affairs that would never give way to a heel, had been decorated with sturdy iron bolts on the outside, none of them new. Only the last of these, which roughly corresponded to the room with the silver flask, had the bolt pushed to.

  With his back to the door and the gun out to cover the hallway, Stuyvesant eased the bolt over with his left hand. He flattened his palm against the door to push it open, then stopped, patted his pockets, and came out with the pencil stub. He inserted it into the drilled bolt-hole in the jamb, shoving it in with his thumb. There: He wasn’t too keen on the idea of being locked inside a room with bars on its windows.

  Now he pushed on the door, which opened without so much as a creak. He took a last glance down the hallway in both directions, and stepped inside.

  Being outside of London made Tom Lakely feel uneasy at the best of times, but the deserted countryside around the clinic always struck him as downright sinister. The only animal within miles that he could recognize with comfort as not about to attack him was the cat that lived in the garage, and even that he’d had to shoo away that morning, for fear it would make him sneeze.

  Because this morning, Major Carstairs wanted silence. Major Carstairs wanted him to sit inside the garage’s storage room and stare out of the small, dirty window at the back of the house. He’d been there for hours, his bladder was killing him, and he’d been eyeing the various bins and containers on the shelves around him for a likely impromptu pissoir when out of the blue, the man appeared.

  Lakely was so surprised he let out a noise, fortunately too s
mall to be heard. His heart began to pound so wildly he thought the American would hear that, across the kitchen yard—or maybe it would beat so hard he’d pass out, crashing into the canisters and bins, and Mr. Carstairs would become very angry indeed.

  The American disappeared down the side of the house, and Lakely swallowed, trying to get himself under control. Major Carstairs needed him, he’d said so. And all he had to do was wait until the American went inside the house, and then walk in a completely normal fashion around the house (the other side of the house) and let Mr. Carstairs know.

  The wait was interminable. Lakely thought his bladder was going to explode, but he didn’t take his eyes off the house, and eventually the man came back around the corner. The intruder then took out a gun and fiddled with it for a minute, before creeping along the bricks to the door, and slipping inside.

  Lakely let out a breath, then grabbed the first bucket that came to hand and took care of his bladder. Only when that danger was out of the way did he leave the garage.

  He strolled along the house as if admiring the blue sky, the green grass. He might have whistled to illustrate his nonchalance if his mouth hadn’t been dust-dry. Only when he’d rounded the front corner of the house did he drop all pretense, scampering up the wide steps and fumbling with the knob until he got it open, then quick-stepping down the hallway to Major Carstairs’ office.

  He rapped on the door then flung it open so hard it bounced back at him. Carstairs looked up, startled at the dramatic entrance, and Lakely swallowed.

  “He’s here!” he squeaked, then cleared his throat. “The American, he’s here. He went through the kitchen door not two minutes ago.” An exaggeration: add three minutes to pee, since his bladder had responded to the sudden permission by seizing up entirely. But no need to tell Major Carstairs that.

  Carstairs nodded and put the cap on his pen, then pushed himself up from the desk. “Very well, Snow and I will take it from here. You can finish up the letter to Steel-Maitland.”

  He took a pair of gloves from the top drawer of the desk and pulled them on, dropped a small revolver into his coat pocket, and left the room.