‘Shall we say — now!’ Blackstone countered.
‘Ah, but that would be rather difficult,’ George told him.
‘And why might that be?’
‘Well, you see, the staff who worked closest with Fanshawe are what I believe you people in England call the upstairs staff — that is to say, the ones who have direct contact with the family.’
‘So?’
‘They are precisely the ones who will be most involved in the process of serving dinner, a process which, I need not remind you, has already been made difficult enough by the loss of our butler, and would be almost impossible if any other servants were withdrawn from it.’
‘You haven’t, by any chance, forgotten that your father’s been kidnapped, have you?’ Blackstone said.
‘No, I haven’t forgotten that. How could I?’
‘And it has occurred to you, hasn’t it, that our questioning your servants could play an important part in our search for him?’
‘Of course.’
‘And yet you’re content to leave questioning them until tomorrow?’
‘Look, Inspector, I do appreciate your difficulties,’ George said, suddenly full of sweet reasonableness, ‘and, by the same token, I would expect you to appreciate ours. This has been a tragic day, I’ll grant you that, but whatever has happened, the life of the house must go on as normal.’
‘Why?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Because the routine of the house is of great importance. The staff expect things to run in a certain way, and would lose some of their respect for us if we allowed even Father’s kidnapping to hamper that.’
‘So you’re all slaves to your servants’ expectations, are you?’ Blackstone asked.
George scowled. ‘I would not put it in quite that manner, but suffice it to say that dinner must be served at the same time as it always is, in the same way as it always is.’
‘Besides,’ Virginia said, ‘how can you question them, Mr Blackstone, when you’ll be at dinner yourself?’
‘I’m not sure-’ George began.
‘You are inviting Inspector Blackstone and Sergeant Meade to dinner, aren’t you, my dear George?’ Virginia asked.
‘They. . they probably don’t have their tuxedos with them,’ George mumbled.
‘Probably don’t? Since they came here to investigate the kidnapping, I’d be very surprised if they did have their tuxedos with them,’ Virginia said.
They made a lot of assumptions in this family, Blackstone thought. They assumed, for example, that the kidnapping was the only crime that had occurred, and conveniently brushed to one side the fact that two men had been murdered. And they assumed — or, at least, Virginia did — that he was the sort of man who could produce a tuxedo, if he were only given enough advance warning.
‘I’m sure if you and Harold put the tuxedo problem in the hands of your valets, they’ll be able to come up with a perfectly satisfactory solution, George,’ Virginia said airily.
‘Besides, if they stay to dinner, how will they ever get back to New York tonight?’ George asked, fighting an increasingly desperate rearguard action.
‘They don’t have to get back to New York tonight, you silly boy,’ the seemingly irrepressible Virginia said. ‘They can spend the night here.’
‘Here?’ George repeated bleakly.
‘Here,’ Virginia confirmed. ‘Just think how convenient that would be. If they stayed in Ocean Heights, they could be up bright and early, and have questioned all the servants before the rest of us had even risen.’ She turned from her brother-in-law to Blackstone. ‘I can’t believe you’d be cruel enough to deny us the pleasure of your company, so I’m absolutely confident that when I ask you dine with us — as a special favour to me — you’ll have no choice but to say “yes”. You will say “yes”, won’t you, Inspector?’
There were several advantages to agreeing to the proposal, Blackstone thought. The first was that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast time, and was ravenously hungry. The second was that it made sense to stay at Ocean Heights rather than travel back to the city — and if they were staying, they might as well eat. Add to that the fact that spending more time with the family might throw up information useful to the case, and there were good solid grounds for staying.
But the real reason that he felt not the slightest hesitation in accepting the offer, he acknowledged to himself, was the look of horror on George Holt’s face as he contemplated the possibility. It would do George good not to get his own way for once — and his obvious discomfort would only add an extra relish to whatever they were served.
‘We’d be delighted to stay to dinner,’ he told Mrs Holt.
‘Oh, good!’ Virginia said, clapping her hands together like a small child. ‘We’ll have such fun!’
You might, Blackstone thought, but I doubt if, once it’s over, the other members of your family will retain any fond memories of the evening.
ELEVEN
It was at the end of the meal that the two uniformed footmen, previously unseen, appeared in the doorway of the dining room.
‘Ah, your escorts have arrived!’ Virginia Holt said to Meade and Blackstone. ‘And if you’re wondering why there’s two of them, it’s because George doesn’t want you wandering about the ancestral home — which isn’t really ancestral at all, and bears very little resemblance to a home — without at least two pairs of eyes following every move you make.’
‘Really, Virginia, sometimes you go too far,’ George said sullenly.
‘You mean, I usually go too far,’ his sister-in-law replied. ‘It was only a joke,’ she assured the detectives. ‘The reason you need a footman each is that, as chance would have it, your rooms are in different parts of the house.’
But there was no chance about it, Blackstone thought, as he followed the mute flunkey down a maze of corridors.
Alex Meade was one of the Connecticut Meades. He wore a tuxedo as if he had been born to it, and suitable accommodation would have been provided for him close to the family’s bedrooms.
He, on the other hand, was one of the East End of London Blackstones, a far less distinguished line. When he had donned his borrowed tuxedo, it had looked as if it were borrowed, and when it came to the matter of selecting his sleeping accommodation, anything would do.
The footman stopped at a door halfway along the corridor.
‘This is it,’ he said, in a voice he might have used when showing the rat-catcher where to catch the rats. ‘Anything else you want?’
‘A little subservience — however insincere — might be nice,’ Blackstone said, mainly for his own amusement.
‘A little what?’ the footman asked.
‘Subservience,’ Blackstone repeated. ‘If you’re interested, you can borrow a dictionary and look it up.’
He opened the door and said, ‘Goodnight,’ over his shoulder. The footman, making no reply, turned and retreated down the corridor.
The room which Blackstone entered contained a single bed, a wardrobe which had seen better days, and a side table on which had been placed a bowl and a jug of water.
It had probably been specifically selected by George to make him aware of his place in the pecking order, he decided — but only someone as stupid as George would even have thought such a demonstration necessary. Besides, as far as Blackstone was concerned, the room was more than acceptable — in fact, as basic as it was, it was a great improvement on both his lodgings in London and his crummy hotel room in New York City.
As he closed the door behind him, he noticed that though there was a keyhole, there was no key. It didn’t matter. He had never had anything that was worth stealing, anyway.
He walked over to the open window and lit a cigarette. From outside came the sound of the ocean crashing against the shoreline — a peaceful sound, despite the power and violence which was producing it.
In terms of his investigation, the dinner had been something of a disappointment, he thought.
With the donning of t
heir evening wear, the Holt family also seemed to have slipped into an altogether more civilized way of behaving. George had been polite to his guests — even gracious, as far as he was able. Harold had told some amusing anecdotes about his time at Harvard University. Virginia — apart from her final comments — had refrained from saying anything outlandish. And even Elizabeth had managed to seem a little more relaxed. Altogether, it could have been called a thoroughly convivial gathering — if you liked that sort of thing.
It was only when Blackstone brought up the subject of Big Bill that the atmosphere had suddenly become as chill as the lemon sorbet they were all eating at the time.
‘There’s one way, at least, in which your father is better off than most kidnap victims,’ he’d said.
‘Oh yes?’ George had replied, in a tone which indicated that he had no particular desire to find out what that one way might be.
‘Indeed,’ Blackstone said, ignoring the lack of interest. ‘Most victims, you see, are not used to being locked up in confined spaces — and of all the frightening things they have to deal with, that’s what often terrifies them the most. But your father won’t have that problem, will he? After all, he has lived in a very confined space for seven years.’
‘Yes, he has,’ George agreed — and said no more.
None of them really cared about Big Bill, Blackstone thought, taking a drag on his cigarette. They certainly wanted the head of the family back safely with them — and were prepared to pay a substantial ransom to get him back — but that was more to do with the price of stocks and shares than with any bonds of affection.
But then, who was to say that William Holt deserved his family’s love and concern?
The picture that had emerged of him so far was of a man prepared to trample any business rival — or even any business partner — into the ground, if it brought him a profit. And perhaps he had adopted a similar cavalier attitude with his own kith and kin.
Blackstone stubbed out his cigarette, undressed, and climbed into bed.
It had been a long day, he thought — and given that he had less than seventy-two hours to prove that he was as good as Alex Meade thought he was, more long days were about to follow.
It was around two in the morning when the bedroom door clicked softly open, and Blackstone’s survival instincts — developed during his time in India — dragged him from exhausted sleep to complete alertness in less than a second.
The door clicked closed again, and the intruder was now inside the room.
If he’d been back in New York City, he would have had his gun under his pillow. But this wasn’t New York — and even in a house where there had already been two murders, he had seen no need to take his weapon to bed with him.
Fool!
Blackstone lay perfectly still, and began to breathe like a man who was still asleep.
The intruder took first one cautious step closer to the bed, and then a second one, and from the sound his feet made on the floor, it was obvious that he was barefoot.
Blackstone’s eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness, and now he could see a vague shape which was halfway across the room and still moving cautiously.
Whatever was about to happen, it would all be over in the next ten seconds, he told himself.
How would his assailant choose to attack him? Not with a gun. In a sleeping house, guns were far too noisy.
Nine!
The intruder would expect his victim to be asleep, and only able to put up token resistance, so maybe he might try to strangle or smother him.
Eight!
Or perhaps his weapon of choice was a hammer — in which case, the head on the pillow would be what he was aiming for.
Seven!
It might be a hammer, but a knife was more likely. He would lift his arm back, then swing the knife in a wide forceful arc towards the supine body.
Six!
The only advantage he himself had in this fight was the element of surprise, Blackstone told himself — and if he moved now, even that would be gone.
Five!
He needed to time it perfectly, to wait until the knife was coming down, and then twist out of the way.
Four!
However hard the assassin tried, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself mid-swing. The knife would cut through the empty air where the body should have been, and bury its blade in the mattress.
Three!
The assassin would pull back his arm for a second attack, but by then — if things went right — the counter-attack would be underway, and he would have his own pain to deal with.
Two!
That’s what will happen if you get it right, Blackstone’s brain told him. If you get it wrong, you’ll never see another sunrise.
One.
The dark shape had almost reached the bed now, and had still not raised its arm.
Blackstone could hear it breathing, and had the smell of it in his nostrils.
There would be no attack, he realized — or, at least, no attack meant to do him harm.
‘Mrs Holt?’ he asked.
The woman jumped slightly, but when she said, ‘Call me Virginia,’ her voice was steady enough.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘You’re not much of a detective, are you, Sam? Didn’t you notice, when you first came into this room, that there was no key in the door?’
‘Yes, I noticed,’ he admitted.
‘And didn’t you realize why there was no key?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Then you can’t have been watching the way I looked at you over dinner. I would have thought that, after that, any man with even half a brain would have been expecting me.’
‘What makes me so privileged?’ Blackstone wondered. ‘Why didn’t you choose Alex Meade instead?’
Virginia laughed again. ‘Alex is a boy,’ she said. ‘A very beautiful one — but still a boy.’
‘And I’m a middle-aged man,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘Yes, you are,’ Virginia agreed. ‘A middle-aged man who’s taken a battering from life. But that’s your appeal, you see — because however much you’re battered, you’ll still fight back. And I like that.’
‘I think you should go,’ Blackstone told her.
‘Do you?’ she asked.
He had only a single sheet covering him, and her hand was under it in a second, grasping him between the legs.
‘Well, there’s at least one part of you that doesn’t want me to go,’ she said huskily.
He said nothing.
He did nothing — even when she began to move her hand up and down his shaft.
‘What’s the matter with you, Sam?’ she demanded. ‘Are you dead or something?’
‘Perhaps,’ he replied. ‘If I am, that would certainly explain the stiffness, wouldn’t it?’
He could not see her face in the darkness, but he sensed that a battle between amusement and anger was being fought out on it.
‘I’m not used to getting this sort of reception,’ she told him.
‘And I’m not used to people taking what they want from me without asking me first,’ he said.
She released her grip on him and pulled her hand clear of the bed.
‘Is that it?’ she asked, and now it was clear that anger had won. ‘Other men can’t believe their own luck when I go to them, but you want me to beg you to screw me?’
‘No, I don’t want you to beg at all,’ Blackstone said. ‘What I want you to do is leave.’
‘Bastard!’ Virginia hissed.
She turned, and headed towards the door. She would have liked to have flounced out of the room — slamming the door behind her — but she was obviously afraid that if she did that, she would wake up the whole house.
He groped in the dark for his cigarettes, lit one up, and wondered why he had turned Virginia Holt’s offer down.
It was certainly not because he found her unattractive. There wasn’t a man on the planet who wou
ld have found her that.
Perhaps, then, it was because she was a married woman — though he had slept with married women before.
So maybe it was because she was involved in the case he was investigating.
‘No, it’s not that, either,’ he groaned aloud. ‘It’s because of Ellie.’
Yes, it was because of Ellie.
Even though he hadn’t seen her for months!
Even though, when they were seeing each other, they had never actually been lovers!
‘Do you really think that she’s being celibate herself?’ he asked himself. ‘Do you think that she’s paying abstemious homage to an affair that was never really an affair at all?’
He was a fool, he decided — a bloody fool!
But there was nothing he could do about that, and, stubbing out his cigarette, he fell into an uneasy sleep.
TWELVE
The slowly rising sun coloured the ocean with a gentle red tint rather like a slight flush on pale skin — or perhaps like blood diluted by water.
Blackstone, his back to the house, looked out over that ocean and wished he was on the other side of it, among people who he knew — people he understood.
‘Well, it is a surprise to find you out here,’ said a voice from somewhere to his left. ‘On this island of late nights, I thought I was the only one who rose early enough to watch the sun come up.’
Blackstone turned to face Harold.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said — and found himself wondering, the moment the words were out of his mouth, what interpretation the other man would choose to put on them.
Did Harold know that his wife had left him in the middle of the night, in search of another man’s arms?
And if he did know, was he pretending not to?
Had he learned, over time, that the best way to deal with his wife’s infidelities was to ignore them?
‘You’re planning to question the servants this morning, aren’t you, Inspector?’ asked Harold, as if in an attempt to move away from a subject that had never really even been raised.
‘Yes, I am planning to question them,’ Blackstone agreed.
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