by Ted Bell
“Yes,” Pelham said. “It was a gift to your great-grandfather from David Lloyd-George himself. Something to do with a political triad long lost to the mists of history.”
“Too small for cigars,” Alex observed.
“Indeed,” Pelham said. “Do you mind if I sit a moment?”
“You may sit as long as you wish, of course. Here, let me pour you a brandy,” Alex said, and he did so.
Pelham pulled up a leather winged-back chair and sat down with a small sigh. He sipped at his brandy, then picked up the box and turned it over in his hands. He focused his clear blue eyes on Hawke.
“Your lordship, I’ve been in service for nigh on seventy years. And for the last thirty years, I’ve been waiting for this exact moment,” the old fellow finally said. Then he downed the brandy in one swallow and held out his glass to Hawke for a refill. This done, he sat back against the cushion and looked about the room. The firelight was licking every corner of the huge space, even reaching up into the ceiling moldings high above them.
“I don’t really know quite where to begin, your lordship,” he said at last.
“I find the beginning is usually appropriate,” Hawke said with a gentle laugh. But Pelham was not amused.
“ ’Tis a serious matter I’ve come to discuss, m’lord.”
“Sorry,” Alex said, and getting to his feet, he began pacing back and forth before the fire, hands clasped behind his back. Something fairly momentous was afoot.
“Your grandfather left this box for you in my trust. He was very clear about its disposition. I was to give it to you as soon as I felt that you were in a sufficiently proper state of mind to receive it.”
“I see,” Alex said, nervously glancing over at him. “A proper state of mind, you say. All very mysterious, old thing.”
“Yes. But he had his reasons, as you’ll soon see.”
“And you’ve obviously concluded I’m in this so-called proper state now?”
“Indeed, I have, m’lord,” Pelham said, a smile passing across his face. “It’s been a fairly rough go for you. Especially since your dear grandfather passed on. We all miss him. But I think he would agree that you have traveled long and lonely through a deep dark wood and have just now emerged into a most sunny place.”
“If you mean by all that, that after a bit of hard sledding I have come to feel as happy as any man has a right to be, then you’re correct. I have. Wouldn’t you agree, Victoria?”
She was about to say “Happy as a clam,” thought better of it, and said, “Never happier.”
“See? And, as you well know, Victoria is something of a psychiatrist. So, assuming the matter of my current blissful state is settled, hand over the goods, young Pelham! Let’s take a look!” He held out his hand.
Pelham extended the box, and Hawke took it.
“Like a mystery novel,” Hawke said, running the tips of his fingers over the lid and smiling at them both. “Isn’t it?”
He placed the strange white box upon the mantelpiece, beneath the mammoth painting of the Battle of Trafalgar. Looking at the box from different angles, Hawke continued his pacing. “Only usually a good mystery writer will stick these intriguing objects right up front to hook the reader.”
“For heaven’s sakes, open it, Alex,” Vicky said. “I can’t wait to see!”
“So, in other words,” Hawke said, looking carefully at Pelham, “Grandfather wanted me to have this box when I had come to grips with—what shall we call it—the past?”
“Precisely, m’lord,” Pelham said, eyes shining.
“Well, then, in that case I think this historic event deserves a toast! Pelham, would you pour us each a wee dram of that fine brandy?”
Hawke received his brandy and stood, glass in one hand, the other up on the mantelpiece. He swirled the amber liquid in the snifter and then lifted it in the direction of Vicky and Pelham.
“A toast,” Alex Hawke said, “if you don’t mind.”
When they, too, raised their glasses, he said, “I would like to drink to the memory of my dear mother and father,” Hawke began, his eyes brimming.
Vicky thought his voice would break, but he continued. “These are memories that have only recently come back to me. But as they do come flooding back, they are filled with a joy and happiness I never knew existed. My father was a splendid fellow, handsome and brave beyond measure.”
“Oh, Alex!” Vicky cried, and there were tears in her eyes.
“My mother—my mother was equally endowed with strength, kindness, and beauty. And she possessed all three in abundance. In the seven short years we had together, she managed to instill in the boy whatever few qualities or virtues the man might have.”
A sob escaped Vicky’s trembling lips.
Alex put the glass to his lips and drank deeply.
“To my mother and father,” Alex said, and flung his empty glass into the fire, shattering it against the blackened bricks.
“Hear! Hear!” Pelham shouted, rising to his feet. He raised his glass to Hawke, eyes glistening, downed the brandy in one swallow, then threw his glass into the fireplace. Seconds later, Vicky’s glass followed his into the fire as well.
“And now at last the mysterious box!” Hawke said, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes. “Let’s see what’s inside it, shall we?”
He took the box from the mantel, looked at it for a long moment, and then slowly lifted the lid.
“Why, it’s a key!” he said, and lifted out a large brass key by the black satin ribbon attached to it. “Where there’s a key, there’s a lock.”
“Yes,” Pelham said. “There is. If you’ll both follow me?”
Vicky and Alex followed him out into the great hall and then began ascending the broad curving staircase, a spiral that formed the center of the entire house. There was a skylight at the very top of the great mansion and flashes of lightning pierced down into the gloom. Pelham, a Scot, never lit any more lights in the house than were absolutely necessary.
“Where are we going, old thing?” Hawke asked, as they passed the fourth-floor landing and continued upwards.
“To my rooms, your lordship,” Pelham said simply.
“Your rooms? What on earth is—”
A violent crack of lightning struck just then, quite nearby, and Vicky cried out, grabbed Alex’s arm, and held on. The few staircase lights that were lit flickered twice and then went out. The whole house was plunged into darkness.
“Not to worry, miss,” Pelham said. “I always carry a small electric torch on my person for just such occasions.”
He flicked the flashlight on and they continued their procession, mounting to the sixth floor of the house.
“Just along here,” Pelham said, “at the end of the hall.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever been to your rooms, Pelham,” Hawke said.
“Ah, but you have done, m’lord,” he said, opening the door to his quarters. “Many’s the time we’d return from an evening out on the tiles and you’d insist on having ‘one and done’ by my fireside before bed. I’d throw a blanket over you on the sofa and try to ignore the horrific snoring.”
“Try the lights,” Vicky said. “They just came back on down the hall.”
Pelham flicked a switch, and two sconces on either side of his small coal-burning hearth came on. It was a simple room, yet rich with books and paintings.
“Let me guess,” Hawke said, dangling the key from its ribbon. “There’s an ancient chest up here, full of priceless gold and silver heir-looms.”
Pelham, meanwhile, had opened a farther door and motioned them to enter.
“What’s this?” Hawke said.
“My clothes closet, your lordship.”
“Your closet?”
“Indeed, sir. At the very rear, you shall find another door, hidden behind all my old jackets and frocks. It’s been locked for thirty years. The key will open it.”
“I’d no idea you were such a clothes-hound,” Hawke said from in
side the closet. “All these linen blazers and—what? Here it is! A hidden door!”
Alex turned the key and pushed the door open. A cold musty wind brushed his cheeks as he and Vicky entered the dark room, brushing cobwebs aside.
“Oh, my God,” Alex said.
Casting the beam of the flashlight about the room, Alex saw that it was filled to the rafters with all the furnishings, toys, and objects of the first seven years of his life.
Atop a dusty leather chest, he spied a red rubber ball.
“I used to toss this ball into the sea,” he told Vicky in hushed tones. “My dog Scoundrel would plunge in and fetch it. And look here!
“This was my pram, isn’t it wonderful? Father designed it to look like a fishing dory on wheels. And here, the picture that hung above my bed. And all my armies of soldiers, and—”
“Alex, come here,” Vicky said.
“What is it?”
“A painting,” she said. “One of the loveliest paintings I’ve ever seen.”
Later that evening, with Pelham’s help, Alex managed to take down The Battle of Trafalgar, which had hung for a century or so above the fireplace. Then, mounting the tall stepladder once more, he hung the painting Vicky had uncovered in Pelham’s hidden room.
“Is it straight?” Alex asked from atop the ladder.
“Perfectly straight, darling,” Vicky said. “Come down and see!”
Alex returned to the sofa without looking back and sat beside Vicky. Then he raised his eyes to the painting.
His father and mother soon after their wedding day.
Mother was seated, wearing the beautiful white lace dress she’d made famous in The White Rose. Father stood at her side in his splendid uniform, his hand on her bare shoulder. A scarlet sash across his chest bore all of his many decorations, and he wore Marshal Ney’s famous sword at his waist.
He and Vicky sat silently, side by side, staring up at the faces of the happy couple. Alex put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer.
He kissed her warm lips, unashamed of the tears of joy and relief that finally, after all these years, he allowed to course down his cheeks.
Pelham found the two of them sleeping on the sofa wrapped in each other’s arms. He placed the fur coverlet over them, stifled a yawn, and walked out into the hall. It was half past one and he was anxious for his warm bed.
He’d no sooner mounted the first step than he heard the sound of the bell downstairs. The front door! At this hour? Madness.
He descended to the ground floor, muttering to himself about what kind of fool would be out on a night like this, especially at this hour. The bell rang once more.
He swung the wide door open.
There was a man standing there in the pouring rain. He wore a long black cloak, buttoned closely about him. His face was hidden by a large black umbrella.
“Yes?” Pelham said, not bothering to be polite.
“Is this the home of Lord Alexander Hawke?” the man asked.
“Lord Hawke has retired for the evening. Who shall I say is calling?”
“Just give him this,” the man said, and handed Pelham a small gold medallion. The old butler looked at it in the light of the carriage lamp mounted beside the door. It was a medal of some sort, a St. George’s medallion. He turned it over. On the reverse were Alex’s initials and the date of his seventh birthday.
“What do you mean by this? What is—”
“Just give it to him,” the man said. As he turned to go, Pelham caught the barest glimpse of his face. He was astounded by what he saw.
The man’s eyes had no color. No color at all.
60
“I sure am glad you were able to make it down here, Mr. Hawke,” the senator said. “Mighty glad.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Hawke said, taking another sip of the delicious whiskey. It was more like some locally grown nectar than any whiskey he’d ever tasted. It was Maker’s Mark, the senator’s favorite, and he’d brought along a bottle as a house gift.
“Little early to be drinking fine bourbon where you come from, I suppose,” the senator said.
“Oh, I’m sure the sun is over the yardarm in some formerly far-flung outpost of the British Empire, sir.”
They were seated in a pair of old rockers out on the verandah, gazing down the long allée of pecan trees in full bloom that led all the way to the levee. There were three or four sleepy bird dogs puddled on the steps. The late-afternoon air was cool and heavily scented with the arrival of spring.
Looking over the sprig of mint in his glass, Hawke was thinking he’d never seen a more beautiful place. The sun was a thin band of bright orange and scarlet, lying just along the top of the levee. Everywhere he looked, riots of color had broken out. Redbud trees grew just beyond the faded white railing, and beyond them were azaleas bursting with clouds of coral and pink blossoms. The enormous old rhododendron bushes that rose up to the second and third floors of the house were heavy with crimson blooms.
There was the hoot of a boat, somewhere out on the river.
“You know, my dear wife didn’t care much for whiskey, Mr. Hawke,” the senator said, with a tinkle of ice cubes and looking over at Hawke with a smile.
“I think a lot of women don’t, Senator.”
“I agree,” the senator said, “but Sarah, well, she had convictions about it. None of ’em very favorable, I might add, sir.”
“Well,” Hawke said, rocking back in his chair, “I’ve got convictions about those little tiny watercress sandwiches some ladies seem to favor.”
“Now, that’s damn well said.”
They were silent for a few moments, savoring the whiskey and the companionship of the dusky hour, and then the senator again turned toward Alex with a happy grin on his face.
“You know, I used to say that trying to sneak a second whiskey past my Sarah was like trying to sneak dawn past a rooster!”
Alex laughed and raised his glass, clinking it against the senator’s.
“That’s quite good,” Alex said. “Another quotation.”
“Son…you ever seen a bona fide Parker Sweet Sixteen?”
He picked up a double-barreled shotgun that had been leaning against one of the massive fluted columns beside his rocking chair.
“No, sir, I don’t believe I—”
“Finest upland bird gun a man could ever…” The senator stopped, overcome by emotion. “Good God almighty, Mr. Hawke, I don’t want to talk about any damn guns. What I been trying to say to you, what I been meaning to do since the minute I laid eyes on you, is to thank you, sir, from the bottom of my heart, from the very bottom of my heart, for what you did.”
Alex saw there were tears welling in the old man’s eyes.
“Well, I—”
“No, no, I don’t want to hear any of your self-deprecating nonsense. No. You found my little girl and you brought her home, just like you said you would, only—”
The senator had to stop and pull his handkerchief from the breast pocket of his old hunting jacket. He rubbed it roughly across his face and stuffed it back inside the pocket.
“Only she’s sitting out there right now in the top of that old oak tree of hers writing her new book instead of…instead of buried beneath—” The old man bent down and scratched one of his dogs behind the ears. He couldn’t continue.
“What’s her new book about?” Alex asked, trying to help the old fellow through the moment.
“Pirates, I think,” he replied, not looking up.
“Does she still not know I’m here?” Alex asked after a few moments had passed.
“ ’Course she don’t know!” the senator exclaimed. “She hasn’t got the foggiest notion I called you either. But, well, she’s been down here with me for over a month now. Not a lot to do around here and I could see on her face she was pinin’ away for you. Plain as day.”
“Did she talk about what happened, Senator?” Hawke asked.
“Well, she told me a little. I didn�
�t push her. She was funny. Said it was like some ride at Disney World, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean with Live Ammunition,’ she said. But she was pretty shaky when I picked her up at the airport down in N’Orleans. I still don’t know how those damn Cubans abducted her in the first place.”
“I’m still trying to put it all together, sir. She’d gone to a club the night before our picnic. She told me she spoke to a Russian at the bar that night. She’d suffered a mild concussion, you know, and she doesn’t really remember, but she may have unwittingly told him our plans for the next day. I don’t know. At any rate, the Cuban submarine I was tracking was in those waters at the time. And the Cubans at that point were trying to use Vicky to get to me. Suddenly, there was an opportunity for a kidnapping.”
“I still don’t understand how they managed to get hold of her,” the senator said. “Out in the water.”
“My guess is that they did know our plans that day. They hid in the trees on the small island just across the cut from the one I’d chosen for the picnic. They probably had us under optical surveillance, waiting for an opportunity. And when Vicky went swimming alone, they had it.”
“But you would have seen them, right, Mr. Hawke?”
“Normally, yes, but she was taken from below. Vicky was grabbed by the ankles and pulled underwater by two Cuban thugs wearing scuba gear. Apparently they called themselves Julio and Iglesias. They’re the ones she overheard bragging about the bomb being hidden in the teddy bear. Anyway, they dragged her ashore, hid her in the pines, and they were all picked up by the Cubans’ submarine later that night.”
“Did they hurt her, Mr. Hawke? Tell me the truth. Did those people harm my little girl?”
“No, sir, they did not. She was smart and brave and used her wits to stay alive. But I would say we arrived pretty much in the nick of time.”
The senator just nodded his head and took a sip of his drink. In the silver ice bucket at his elbow, there was a lovely sound as ice melted and shifted.
“Needless to say, I’m forever in your debt, sir,” he said finally, turning away.
The crickets had come alive now, and great billowing flocks of blackbirds filled the flaming skies above the oaks and elms and pecan trees.
