Death of an Old Master lfp-3

by David Dickinson

  ‘Look, Francis,’ whispered Fitzgerald, ‘two hundred yards away you can see the stable block. I think we should leave the horses here in case they make a noise.’

  They abandoned the horses and tiptoed forward, bent almost double into the wind. Snow was falling fast now, the stable block and house scarcely visible. Then they froze in their tracks. A bell was ringing, not from the church two hundred yards to their left, but from inside the ghostly features of de Courcy Hall itself. They pressed forward.

  ‘What, in God’s name, is that bell for, Francis? It’s well after eleven at night,’ muttered Johnny, taking shelter behind a tree.

  ‘I doubt very much if it’s for evening prayers in this place, Johnny. Let’s get further forward. Sounds like a general alert to me. Place isn’t on fire, is it?’ whispered Powerscourt.

  Fitzgerald led them forward at a rush to the walled garden. They could just see the side of the house. Lights had been turned on. There was a lot of confused shouting of orders. Then they saw a party of four men, some with rifles, come running at the double from the front of the house and then turn left towards the woods that led to Cromer.

  ‘Where are the forger’s quarters, Johnny?’ whispered Powerscourt. ‘I think they must have tried to escape.’ He wondered suddenly what instructions the jailers had in case of flight. Recapture, certainly. But an escaped forger might be able to tell the tale of his endeavours with brush and glaze, locked away in de Courcy Hall. That could be very embarrassing for somebody in London. Would they rather he was dead? Like Christopher Montague? Powerscourt wondered macabrely if they had brought the garrotting wire with them, those men who had just rushed up the hill, tucked into an inside pocket. Or would they shoot the forger dead, another shooting accident in Norfolk? So unfortunate, officer, he should never have been wandering about in the field of fire.

  Johnny Fitzgerald led him round to the back of the house. There were no lights on in the Long Gallery, only the snow driven in against the windows. Powerscourt thought you could see ten yards in front of your face, no more.

  ‘Look, Francis.’ Fitzgerald was pointing to the end window. It was still half open. An improvised rope could just be seen, dangling to the ground, the white of the sheets almost invisible in the swirling snow.

  ‘My God, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt. ‘The birds have flown. But what a night to choose. We’d better get after them.’

  Powerscourt and Fitzgerald set off up the hill. Neither had any clear idea what to do if they encountered the guards. Powerscourt suddenly remembered what Lady Lucy had said to Fitzgerald before he left for Norfolk: ‘Please check in the local guidebooks before you go, Johnny,’ she had said. ‘Make sure there aren’t strange local customs up there at this time of year. Shooting strangers for instance. I’d hate to think there’s an East Anglian version of the Traitor’s Run.’

  Now they were right in the middle of it.

  The first stages of the escape had gone very well. Orlando shinned down the improvised rope and laughed when his feet touched the ground. Imogen had thrown down their bag and shot down the sheets to join him. She put her finger to her lips. Hand in hand they set off up the hill, their bodies swaying together sometimes in the wind.

  The snow exhilarated them at first. Imogen darted off and threw a couple of crisp snowballs at Orlando. Then they realized they couldn’t see very far. Then they felt they might be lost. The route had seemed very clear when surveyed in the daylight on afternoon walks or from the windows of the Long Gallery. Up the hill, following the line of the path. If they kept going straight after that they should reach a boundary wall. As long as they continued in the same direction they should come to the sea, they should come to Cromer, they should reach freedom. But you couldn’t see where you were going in the blizzard. They might be going back to the house itself for all they knew.

  Then they heard the bell. ‘My God,’ whispered Orlando, ‘that can only mean one thing. They’re coming after us. Let’s hurry.’

  Imogen wondered if their pursuers would be able to navigate any better than they could. They had reached the top of the hill. The woods were less dense on the far side. She held Orlando’s hand very tight and pressed forward into the snowstorm.

  Powerscourt noticed that the four men in front had spread out in a V formation, each man no more than fifteen paces from his neighbour. He pointed it out to Fitzgerald who raised his hand in a mock salute. ‘Sergeant Major,’ muttered Johnny, ‘advance according to the drill book.’ They were deep in the woods now, the snow covering the tracks behind them. The mud rose up their boots. The snow got into their eyes, making visibility yet more difficult.

  ‘What’s ahead, Johnny?’ whispered Powerscourt, fearful of the fate of the escapees.

  ‘More woods,’ replied Fitzgerald, ‘then a wall. Trees stop just past the wall. Open country for a bit. Then over a hill and Cromer’s on the far side.’

  Then the whirling of the gale was interrupted. Two shots rang out into the night. They were immediately followed by a parade ground bellow. ‘Cease firing! Bloody fool!’

  One bullet caught Orlando in the thigh. It was only a flesh wound but the blood poured out of it, lying in scarlet drops that turned dark against the snow. He limped into the shelter of the last clump of trees before the open ground.

  ‘My love,’ whispered Imogen, ‘how bad is it? Can you walk?’

  Orlando had turned as pale as the falling snow. Instinctively he held on to his wounded leg.

  ‘I think we should tie something round it,’ said Imogen, remembering an article she had read recently on good nursing practice. She tore one of Orlando’s new shirts into strips, as she had torn the sheet into strips a few happier hours before. They huddled together into the trees scarce daring to breathe. Thirty feet away they could hear a man floundering towards them.

  Powerscourt and Fitzgerald had flung themselves to the ground when they heard the shot. Years of military training made it instinctive. They heard the order to cease fire.

  Then they rose very slowly to their feet and set off up the hill. Powerscourt felt in his pocket.

  ‘Do you have a gun, Johnny?’ he whispered. Fitzgerald nodded. Even at six feet away he had to squint to see the nod. The snow was now lying nearly an inch thick on the ground. Some of the trees, not in direct line of the blast, were covered in snow from head to toe. Then they heard the Sergeant Major once more.

  ‘Twenty paces to the right,’ he shouted. ‘Twenty paces to the right. Now!’

  Imogen held Orlando’s hand very tight as the man stumbled away from them towards the boundary wall. The snow was easing now, but the wind kept up its ferocious battering against the woods of de Courcy Hall.

  ‘They’re ahead of us now, Orlando,’ Imogen whispered into her lover’s ear, ‘they’re heading for Cromer. Can you walk?’

  Orlando managed a brief hobble out of their clump of trees. He nearly fell over. He reached out for Imogen’s shoulder. The flow of blood had eased. It was now seeping slowly out of his thigh and dripping down his new trousers.

  ‘Christ,’ said Orlando. ‘It’s bloody painful. Maybe you could rub some snow into it. That might ease it. But I don’t think I could get as far as Cromer, not with our four friends up ahead.’ He staggered a few paces more. Imogen bent down to rub snow on to his leg. The babes in the wood were wounded now, the prospect of escape lost to a rifle shot in the dark.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ asked Imogen, struck by the terrible thought that Orlando might bleed to death up here in the woods, and she would be left to drag his corpse back to the house for ignominious burial.

  ‘I know it’s hard, my love,’ said Orlando, wincing with the pain. ‘I think we’ve got to go back. If I can get that far.’

  Limping, hobbling, tottering, staggering, occasionally falling, Orlando and Imogen set off on their return journey to de Courcy Hall.

  Powerscourt and Fitzgerald halted at the boundary wall. The snow had almost stopped. The surrounding carpet of white
meant you could see much further once you were out of the woods. Against this ghostly landscape they watched as the four guards made their way in regular order across the fields. They waited for about five minutes. There was no sound from up ahead, only the relentless lashing of the wind.

  ‘What do you think, Johnny? Should we go after them?’ said Powerscourt.

  ‘Why not?’ replied Fitzgerald, always eager for the chase.

  ‘It’s only this. If the forger and his lady had been crossing this field, we would have seen them. Or we would have heard shouts of capture.’

  ‘Do you think they’re dead, Francis? One bullet each?’ said Fitzgerald.

  ‘I don’t think so. It would be fantastic shooting to hit two people in this light. Look, why don’t we do it like this. You carry on following our four friends up there. I’ll go back to the house and get the horses. If I find the forger, well and good.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Fitzgerald.

  Powerscourt watched his friend jump over the boundary wall and set off across the open country. He turned and began to make his way back through the woods. When he came out he noticed that he must have gone way over to the right as he was at the edge of the lake. Then he started running at full speed towards the front door. For in the snow there were footprints, two sets of them incredibly close together. The footprints made an irregular path, reeling like a pair of drunks going home, across the garden towards the main entrance. There were dark marks beside and between them. Powerscourt followed the trail that led past the Long Gallery and into the front of the house.

  A trail of blood.

  22

  Orlando Blane was lying on the sofa in the Long Gallery. Imogen knelt beside him, washing the blood from his leg, a new bandage ready to wrap round his thigh. On the easel behind him, the outlines of his Giovanni Bellini stood perfectly still. There was a pale light, reflected from the snow outside.

  ‘Imogen, I’m so sorry,’ said Orlando. ‘If I hadn’t got shot we might have made it to Cromer.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ Imogen stopped work on his leg to wipe the sweat from Orlando’s brow. The tottering journey down from the woods had left him exhausted. His face was pale, his skin totally white.

  ‘The worst thing is this,’ he said, ‘you were only allowed to come because they were pleased with me. Now they won’t be pleased with me at all. They’ll send you away first thing in the morning.’ Tears began rolling slowly down the pallor of his face.

  ‘Don’t cry, my love, please don’t cry.’ Imogen stroked his hand, wondering what would happen to him if he didn’t see a doctor very soon.

  ‘I wonder what they’ll do to me,’ said Orlando very quietly, taking Imogen’s hand into his own, ‘what the punishment will be for trying to escape. Maybe I’ll be locked up here for years and years. Maybe I’ll never see you again.’

  This was more than Imogen could bear. She busied herself with the new bandage on Orlando’s thigh, her tears dropping softly on the floorboards. Overhead they could hear the rats on night patrol, scurrying round on the floor above.

  Then they heard footsteps coming along the corridor.

  ‘Maybe we have to say goodbye now,’ said Orlando. He leant forward, grimacing with the pain, and kissed Imogen on the lips. The footsteps were half-way along the corridor.

  ‘I shall always love you, Imogen,’ said Orlando.

  The door was flung open. A tall man with curly brown hair and deep blue eyes stood in front of them. They had never seen him before.

  ‘Good morning to you both. You,’ the figure strode over to inspect Orlando’s wound, ‘must be Orlando Blane. And you,’ he smiled at Imogen, ‘must be his friend. We must get out of here at once. I have a couple of horses up by the stable block. My name is Powerscourt.’

  Johnny Fitzgerald watched the four men disappear over the brow of the hill. He had served for years with Powerscourt as intelligence officers of the Crown. They had saved each other’s lives in battle. One of the main jobs of intelligence, Powerscourt had often said, was to try to anticipate not only what the enemy were going to do next, but what they were going to do after that. Johnny could go back to de Courcy Hall and help Powerscourt with whatever was happening there. Or he could move ahead and find out what the Sergeant Major and his three friends would do once they reached Cromer. At least one, Johnny suspected, would be sent to watch the railway station. But the others? The wind was still howling through the trees behind him as Johnny made his decision. He set off at a loping run across the snow-covered fields. It was twenty minutes after midnight.

  Powerscourt took in the easel, the canvases stacked up by the door, the art books lining the walls. Now is not the time to ask questions, he said to himself. Later, later.

  ‘Can you walk?’ he said to Orlando Blane. ‘Perhaps if you lean on me it would be easier.’

  Orlando struggled to his feet and put his arm around Powerscourt’s shoulder. ‘I can manage,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how long I can hold out. Imogen, do you remember seeing a stick by that little table in the hall?’

  Imogen shot off down the corridor, past the stags’ heads with the dusty antlers, and returned with a stout walking stick. The journey was very difficult. Twice Orlando fell, dragging Powerscourt down with him into the snow. The blood had started flowing from his wound again, Imogen dabbing at it with the remains of the sheets from the bed. On their left the storm still rampaged through the woods, leaves and small branches occasionally flying through the air. When they reached the walled garden Powerscourt leant Orlando Blane against the gate and ran to find the horses. Could Orlando manage on a horse? Should they just throw him across it like a wounded man being brought back from battle?

  Imogen had the answer. ‘I have some experience with horses,’ she said to Powerscourt. ‘Put him across the saddle and I will ride behind him. I’ve done it before.’

  Powerscourt was on the verge of asking where she had learnt this technique, now proving invaluable in a snowstorm in the middle of a Norfolk night, when she told him.

  ‘My sister fell off once miles from anywhere and injured her back. I had to bring her home.’

  ‘I wish it would start to snow again,’ said Powerscourt, staring up at what he could see of the sky. ‘Then it would cover our tracks. If it doesn’t we’re going to leave a route map behind us for any of our friends to follow.’

  Very slowly the tiny cavalcade set off from de Courcy Hall. Imogen had the reins in one hand, the other trying to anchor Orlando in his position. She wondered if they should have tied him on. Powerscourt brought up the rear, casting nervous glances behind. Fifteen minutes later they reached the main lodge, twin cottages on either side of the road. Both were empty, broken panes of glass and swinging doors bearing witness to the desolation of the estate.

  ‘Left here,’ whispered Powerscourt. ‘We turn right in a hundred yards or so, then right again. That’s the main road to Cromer. God knows what we’ll find when we get there.’

  Five minutes later a man materialized out of a line of trees. He held out his hand, requesting them to stop. Imogen looked round desperately at Powerscourt. Was this the end of their escape? Had they come this far only to be recaptured so near their destination? Powerscourt dismounted and shook the stranger by the hand. Bizarre introductions were made as the snow began to fall again.

  ‘Johnny Fitzgerald, this is Imogen. And this is Orlando Blane, shot in the leg. Johnny Fitzgerald. What’s the score up there, Johnny?’

  ‘It’s not good, Francis.’ Fitzgerald was panting heavily. ‘There’s two of them watching this road about half a mile further up. Another two have gone off to the railway station.’

  ‘Let’s try putting ourselves in their shoes for a minute, Johnny.’ Powerscourt was stroking his horse’s head very gently, as if the animal knew the answers. ‘Those four ruffians know these two have escaped. They don’t know Orlando is wounded. They don’t know either of us from Adam. At some point they’re going to return to the Hall to see if Orl
ando and Imogen have gone back there. The ruffians probably think they’re hiding until the first train in the morning. They won’t go back until they’ve seen who boards it. In a perfect world we’d just wait until the middle of the morning and go into Cromer then. But we can’t. This young man needs a doctor.’

  ‘Maybe we need a diversion, Francis.’ Johnny Fitzgerald looked as though he was enjoying himself. ‘Wait here for about ten minutes or so. I’m going to draw those two fellows away from the road. When you hear a scream, press on with full speed.’ Johnny disappeared into the woods to their right. Imogen was stroking Orlando’s head and whispering into his ear. Powerscourt watched the softly falling snow, erasing the tracks behind them.

  Then there was a scream. One very loud scream. Powerscourt led the way, urging Imogen to make all speed. They heard sounds of people crashing through the bushes on their right. Then there was another scream. Powerscourt thought he could hear the two guards shouting to each other in confusion. But they were through. They had passed the point where the sentries had been on guard. Powerscourt led them on a little track which led along the sea front to the hotel. They were almost invisible from the clifftop above. Twenty minutes later Orlando was stretched out on Johnny Fitzgerald’s bed. The night porter had been sent to bring the doctor.

  Johnny Fitzgerald had secured a bottle of brandy and was inspecting its label with extreme scepticism. ‘Don’t think they’d serve this stuff in the better London clubs,’ he said to Powerscourt, ‘but you can’t be particular after a night like that.’

  ‘Johnny,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I’ve just had a daft idea.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Francis,’ Johnny Fitzgerald was pouring himself a giant refill already, ‘it’s half-past two in the morning. We’ve just spent an idyllic few hours wandering about in a snowstorm with Romeo next door nearly killed by one of those characters. And you start talking about daft ideas.’ He took a giant’s mouthful. ‘What is it?’